Fox Chapel's Nico Castracani named U16 state skiing champ
Central Catholic sophomore and Fox Chapel resident Nico Castracani won the state Alpine Racing Championship on Feb. 24 and will advance to the Eastern Championships in Maine.
Castracani was crowned the U16 state champ as the Men’s Overall Winner at Blue Mountain Resort in eastern Pennsylvania.
It’s the fourth consecutive year he’s advanced to the Eastern Championships and also his second state overall championship — two years ago, he won the U14 rank.
With this victory, Castracani advances as Pennsylvania Alpine Racing Association’s top seeded male racer to the U16 Eastern Championships at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maine, March 8-13.
PARA includes alpine racing teams from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
With first-place combined finish times in Super Giant Slalom and Giant Slalom, the teen tallied first-place runs in four of the total five scored runs at the three-day event.
Castracani is a member of Hidden Valley Race Club (HVRC) at Hidden Valley, Pa., and was the only racer from Pittsburgh to make the PARA State Team, which consists of nine athletes.
Tawnya Panizzi is a TribLive reporter. She joined the Trib in 1997. She can be reached at tpanizzi@triblive.com.
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