A very bright light has gone out on the campus of Thiel College.

Toby Atwood, a 21-year-old student heading into her senior year set out to run the Presque Isle half marathon on Sunday, but never finished the race. And now Toby won't return to finish her senior year at Thiel.

The college with just under 1,000 student is a tight knit community and everyone knew and loved Toby Atwood.

She was set to be captain of the tennis team in her senior year, and was the number one singles player.

Head tennis coach Anthony Kobak caller her a generational player. "I mean that from not only a player skill standpoint, I mean a really good player, she's our number one singles player, but also as a person and a student athlete.  What she's done on and off the court, I wont see someone like that ever again," the coach said.  "She's going to be our captain, in our team meeting we talked about this and our players made sure they wanted to have it be like that," he added.

Toby Atwood was the number one ranked student on campus academically, majoring in accounting and business administration, was the president of her sorority and was described as welcoming and a friend to everyone she met.

Mike McKinney, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students talked about Toby's impact at Thiel. "She was an outstanding student leader on campus, she was captain of her tennis team, president of her sorority Zeta Tau Alpha, president of the student athlete advisory committee and actually served as an ambassador in our admissions department as a member of the Thiel Team.  She was a 4.0 student -- she lifted up others around her and she'll be deeply missed by everyone who knew her," McKinney said.  "I can't even imagine the deep pain her family feels, and the impact that she had on campus just spreads across throughout our faculty and staff, fellow students, it's really big and difficult for us," he added. 
 
When students are back on campus for the fall semester, administrators will plan a time to memorialize the stellar student.  For now, they're offering counseling and extending their sympathy to the Atwood family.
 
Grace Jones, a student in the physician assistant program at Thiel started a gofund me account to raise funds to help with the funeral costs -- many are donating from Thiel, Toby's hometown of Kittanning, PA, and from Erie runners as well.  "We've seen Thiel names, we've seen Kittanning names where she's from --we've seen Erie names from people that also ran the half marathon and have reached out because they have wanted to help," Jones said.  "It's just amazing to see the world come together for such a tragic cause to just kind of shine some light on such a beautiful soul."
 
For information on funeral arrangements click here.