FARMINGTON – University of Maine at Farmington student Katie LeBlanc was named Senior Scholar-Athlete and Runner of the Year for the North Atlantic Conference this season.
LeBlanc, of Saco, is the 2019 North Atlantic Conference Women’s Cross Country Runner of the Year and the 2019 Senior Scholar-Athlete. LeBlanc earned three Runner of the Week honors leading up to the NAC Championship race. She started the season by winning the UMPI Invitational 5K (22:41) and leading the Beavers to a 1-2-3 finish. LeBlanc also won the Husson Harrier Invitational 5K in a time of 20:22.2, outpacing the field by 20 seconds. She was the top NAC runner, earning 27th place overall, in the Maine State Championship 5K where she clocked a 20:48.9. The senior ran away with the conference title last Saturday, winning the challenging 5K race at NVU-Lyndon in 22:06.4 and claiming Runner of the Year honors.
LeBlanc was also selected by the conference head coaches and faculty athletic representatives as the Senior Scholar-Athlete. She maintains a 3.806-grade point average as a Business Economics major, has been consistently on the Dean’s List throughout her four years and used her business economic skills as the treasurer of the Indoor Track & Field club.
In addition to being a two-year captain of the Cross Country team, LeBlanc is a member of the campus volunteer group Alpha Phi Omega. She is currently interning with the Healthy Community Coalition for Greater Franklin County, further developing a program called Senior Buddies which supports volunteers who participate in one-on-one or group activities within senior facilities in the greater Farmington area. LeBlanc also spent time volunteering at the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Auburn at the beginning of the 2019 Cross Country season. As a junior year, she worked on a significant semester-long project that studied the effectiveness of communication on the UMF campus, and also studied abroad in Cyprus during the spring semester. LeBlanc used sophomore spring break to go on a volunteer trip and was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta during her first year at UMF.
LeBlanc was named the NAC Rookie of the Year in 2017.
UMF Cross Country runners Abigail Hunt and Chloe Kenyon were also recognized, earning spots on the Second Team All-Conference. Tabitha Lingar was named to the Sportsmanship Team.
