Alumni Corner: Torino and Kilpatrick shine on foot and in pool
After a strong stint at Duke, former North Marion cross country and track standout Leigha Torino is spending her graduate year at Virginia Tech.
Recently, she competed in the ACC cross country championships, finishing 69th in 21:48 on Oct. 29. And two weeks later, she chopped 42 seconds off that time, finishing 32nd in the NCAA Division I Southeast Region championships.
Torino also took advantage of the NCAA now allowing athletes to profit off their names, images and likenesses by signing on to be part of the Barstool Athlete program. According to nilcollegeathletes.com, Torino signed a contract on Aug. 18 that provides her with Barstool merchandise, including t-shirts, hoodies and sweatpants.
Torino’s final act at Duke was a big one. She helped lead the Blue Devils to their first ACC women’s outdoor track title (shared with Florida State) last May. She also left ranking fifth all-time at Duke in the 800.
Midwestern splash
Former Vanguard swimmer Katelyn Kilpatrick is in the midst of her senior year at Nebraska and has quite the career with the Cornhuskers.
In addition to the three letters she has earned, Kilpatrick has been named Academic All-Big Ten twice (2020, ‘21), to the Nebraska Scholar-Athlete Honor Roll (Fall of 2018 and ‘20, Spring of ‘20) and to the Tom Osborne Citizenship Team (2019, ‘20, ‘21). She also was presented the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award this year.
Her best finishes this season are second in the 1,000 freestyle at the Iowa State dual and top-5 in the same event a week later against Kansas (Nov. 5). A versatile talent, her career-best times are 58.31 (100 freestyle vs Iowa in 2021), 1:52.08 (200 free at 2018 Hawkeye Invitational), 4:49.08 (500 free at the Last Chance Meet in 2019), 10:05.11 (1,000 free in the 2020 Big Ten Championships) and 16:35.46 (1,650 free in the 2019 Big Ten Championships).
Alumni Corner runs every other Thursday in the Star-Banner. There will be one more Alumni Corner in 2021 before taking a short break and returning in 2022.
This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: Alumni Corner: Torino and Kilpatrick shine on foot and in pool
