Altoona junior Gavin Ciampoli, top, scores a takedownn on West Scranton's Tommy Schechterly before recording two nearfall points in the process during the second period of their 160-pound Class 3A state finals match Friday. Ciampoli captured gold with a 9-3 victory.

Gavin Ciampoli, like generations of the program’s gold medal hopefuls before him, has looked up daily to the wall at the Altoona Area High School with the two names who have won state titles in wrestling:

n Brad Benson (1973)

n Steve Maurey (1974)

“I’ve always wanted to put my name up there,” Ciampoli said, “and now I can.”

Mission accomplished.

Ciampoli became the third Altoona state champion and the first since Maurey in 1974 when he beat West Scranton’s Tommy Schecterly, 9-3, in the 160-pound finals of the PIAA Class 3A Championships on Saturday at the Giant Center in Hershey.

“I was so happy for him,” Altoona coach Joel Gilbert said, “because he works so hard in the room. Sometimes he’s overshadowed by some of the other names in that room. You have to ask yourself where you fit in. I think now he’s fit in there with some of the best ever in Altoona’s history.

“I don’t believe he gave up a takedown here and he looked great in every match that he was in. He takes care of the little things. He eats right and is a straight-A student.”

Ciampoli (38-6 this season and 101-28 in his career) was the 10th Mountain Lion to reach the state tournament finals and the second in a row, joining 2025 finalist Luke Sipes.

“I’ve got to be honest. It means the world to me,” Gilbert said of Altoona’s third gold medal. “We put a lot of time and effort into it. It takes a whole community to get this done. This is just icing on the cake.”

While Ciampoli was able to reach the top step of the medals stand, Tyrone’s Kyle Scott had to settle for second place. Scott suffered his first loss of the season, 4-1, to Faith Christian Academy’s now four-time state champion Adam Waters in the Class 2A 189-pound finals. Scott finished with a 46-1 record.

“I lost, and that always sucks,” Scott said. “I think I wrestled OK against him. That’s the least amount of scoring in any of his state matches. I was proud of that. I kept my position and I hand fought well, but I couldn’t get an attack off.”

Weaver, Williams place

Altoona senior Braiden Weaver, whose shot at a finals appearance ended with a shocking pin by Whitehall’s returning state champion Wilmont Kai in the 133-pound Class 3A semifinals on Friday night, was able to finish fifth.

It was his third state medal, including a third-place medal his junior season and a fifth-place medal his freshman season.

“Braiden Weaver has been a very consistent wrestler with an outstanding career here,” Gilbert said. “A three-time state place finisher puts him right up there with the best ever here at Altoona. There have only been a couple other guys (Sipes and Cole Manley) who have ever done that.

“Braiden has gotten to the semis the past two years. A few things didn’t go his way down here, but this is the state tournament — the best state for wrestling in the country. He’s accomplished a lot of things. He’s well deserving of all the medals he has.”

Glendale senior Daniel Williams (285) finished sixth, earning his first state medal in three appearances. Williams (48-7) lost a 3-2 tiebreaker decision to Upper Dauphin’s Eoghan Savage in the fifth-place bout to complete his comeback season from devastating knee injuries.

Ciampoli 7th last year

For Ciampoli, his gold medal was his second state tournament medal in three Hershey appearances.

He came in seventh last season at 139, which didn’t exactly make him an obvious pick as a gold medalist candidate. His six losses through Jan. 17 probably didn’t make him the favorite at 160.

“I think (the losses) mentally helped him,” Gilbert said.

Ciampoli closed the season with 15 straight wins, including 12 bonus-point wins.

Ciampoli was familiar with Schecterly because he had beaten him, 5-2, at Mid-Winter Mayhem. Ciampoli came out aggressive on Saturday, missing only an early takedown chance and forcing a stalling call on Schecterly in a scoreless first period.

In the top position in the second period, Ciampoli nearly got back points off of a tilt.

“I thought it was close,” Ciampoli said. “I don’t know if I should have had it or shouldn’t have had backs, but it was close.”

Schecterly was able to escape, but Ciampoli gave himself a big cushion by taking him down and scoring three nearfall points for a 5-1 lead.

“Gavin kept the pedal down the whole time,” Gilbert said. “It was all gas and no brakes. I think he put a lot of pressure on that kid.”

“We work a lot on protecting leads, hand fighting and good positioning in the last period,” Ciampoli said. “All that was going through my head in the last period was hand fight, look for re-attacks and close the match out.”

Leading 5-2 entering the third period, Ciampoli escaped 21 seconds into the period. The 6-2 lead held up until Ciampoli took Schecterly down at the edge of the mat with 27 seconds remaining. The Mountain Lion could see his name on that banner now.

He stayed in control from the top position and gave up a stalling point with 4 seconds left. When time expired, he tossed his headgear over to Gilbert, flashed the No. 1 sign as his hand was raised, shook the hands of the West Scranton coaches and calmly walked into a hug of Gilbert.

“It’s just how I was raised,” Ciampoli said of his calm celebration. “Shout out to my parents (Sarah and Michael) and faith in the Lord. I just try to be humble. Life is a lot bigger than just wrestling.”

“That’s his personality,” Gilbert said. “He doesn’t let his emotions get to him. You can just see there are no nerves there — stone cold. Nothing fazes him. He just keeps rolling.”

Ciampoli wasn’t planning on having an outrageous celebration. He planned to watch a UFC fight Saturday night, eat and spend time with family. He was also wasn’t going to be off the mat too long, wrestling in the April 22 U.S. Open in Las Vegas.

While he wasn’t a favorite to win gold this season, Ciampoli will be the target of opponents trying to knock off an elite wrestler next season.

“I never really have come into a season as the top dog with a bull’s eye on me,” he said, “but I’m looking forward to it. Next season starts now. I have to start getting better for next year.”

“It’s nice to have a guy back who’s a returning state champion. I don’t know how that feels to be honest,” Gilbert said. “I’m excited for next season. I’d like to see him come down here and do it again, but there are no guarantees down here. I know he can do it again.”

Waters wins fourth

Only a Waters’ third-period takedown separated him from Scott. The last time they had wrestled, Waters (33-2) rang up a 21-5 technical fall in 5:20 in the state semifinals last year.

“Everything,” Scott said when he was asked of the difference between last year wrestling Waters and now. “I definitely put in a whole different workload compared to last year.

“Every single person who has wrestled Waters was set in their mind that they were going to lose. I did not think that way. There was no doubt in my mind that I could win that match.

One other item to show how much more competitive Scott was against the Ohio State commit is that the 4-1 score was the closest of all four of the career finals wins by Waters. Waters had two pins his first two years and an 11-1 win over Bald Eagle Area’s Caleb Close last year.

“Kyle is definitely not happy with losing,” Tyrone coach Quentin Wright said. “But the one thing we’ve got to put into perspective is the opponent is number one in the country maybe pound-for-pound and now a four-time Pennsylvania state champ.

“Kyle didn’t lose to a nobody or anybody or someone like himself, who’s in the state finals for the first time. He lost to one of the legendary wrestlers in the state. Kyle was right there in a one takedown match. That’s extremely impressive whenever you look at it from that perspective.”

Scott has been elite most of the season, racking up 19 technical falls, including two in his first two bouts in Hershey, and 17 falls.

But Waters, who became the 15th wrestler in state history to win four titles, was far better than any wrestler he’s faced this year.

It appeared Waters, ranked No. 2 in the country, would get a takedown in the first period, but Scott was able to use an elevator-type throw to flip Waters off of him and out of bounds.

“I don’t know what I was trying to do there,” Scott said, “but it worked. It was a little bit of desperation. I’m used to those positions.”

“Kyle was really good at scrambling,” Wright said. “I told him to keep scrambling, never give up on yourself.”

After a scoreless first period, Waters quickly escaped, made a single-leg shot, had Scott defending on one leg and went out of bounds with 54 seconds left, but a takedown wasn’t called.

Scott escaped 20 seconds into the third period to tie the score, 1-1. The impossible seemed possible as a large crowd watched. But Waters took Scott down with 1:10 left to go ahead 4-1.

“I tried to kick out of it,” Scott said, “but he had the back of my ankle and it was just too late. He’s tough. He knows what he’s doing. He’s going to Ohio State for a reason. He’s got that top of the line technique, and I have to figure out how to adapt to that because that’s all I’m going to see in college.”

“We were working on things all year,” Wright said, “and that was one of those takedowns to that leg that we didn’t quite practice enough. Kyle stopped that five or six times.”

Waters rode Scott the rest of the way. When time expired, Scott hugged Waters, shook the hands of Faith Christian coaches and left the mat as Waters was holding up four fingers to the crowd.

Scott earned his third state medal in his fourth state tournament, adding a silver medal to his eighth place as a sophomore and fourth place as a junior.

Scott finished his career as the school and Blair County’s record holder for wins (163), breaking A.J. Schopp’s record of 160. He won his first District 6 and Southwest Regional titles this season. He’ll prepare to wrestle at the University of Pittsburgh.

Scott revealed after that’s been dealing with a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder since September and got a cortisone shot in December. He said he’d back to practicing on Monday.

“It’s super enjoyable and makes me really, really happy,” Scott said. “I’m going to keep doing it for as long as I can until I have to get this shoulder fixed, which is going to be a very depressing time.”

Ridge’s Deputy wins

Regionally, Chestnut Ridge freshman Kooper Deputy captured his first state title with a 3-0 win over Trinity’s Arav Pandey in the Class 2A 107-pound title bout.

His brother, Dominic Deputy, wasn’t able to repeat as champion, finishing third at 127.

Huntingdon’s Landon Erdman was a runner-up at 215, dropping a 13-1 major decision to Faith Christian’s Cael Weidemoyer.

Sisters repeat

Chestnut Ridge sisters Juliet Alt (148) and Violette Lasure repeated as champions in the girls tournament.

Lasure captured her third state title by pinning her way through the tournament, including a pin of Abington Heights’ Hayden Manning in 4:48 in the finals.

Alt earned his second title with a 1-0 win over Sun Valley’s Jameson Strickland in the finals.

Bassett pins Harer

Bishop McCort now three-time state champion Bo Bassett pinned Montgomery’s two-time state champ Brandt Harer in 2:49 in the much anticipated 145-pound Class 2A finals.

Bassett, who finished 170-0 in his career, was voted the Outstanding Wrestler of the Class 2A tournament.

McCort’s Melvin Miller (160) earned his third title with a 5-4 win over Warrior Run’s Raegan Millheim. In a rematch of the 121-pound District 6 and Southwest Regional finals, Keegan Bassett beat Penns Valley’s Max Dinges, 4-2.