For their dogged determination to overcome life's obstacles while excelling at school and in sports, Willow Glen High School seniors Brad Kompelien and Mallory Stein were both honored with the REACH Youth Scholarships this year.

The duo, along with four other students from Santa Clara County, won a total of $10,000 in scholarships at a May 12 awards breakfast at the San Jose Marriott. In its ninth year, the San Jose Sports Authority's REACH scholarships are presented annually to deserving student-athletes who have overcome adversity to succeed in athletics.

For Mallory and Brad, their respective $1,700 and $2, 000 scholarships are a fitting end to their successful high school sports careers.

As captain of Willow Glen High's field hockey team for two years, Mallory has nailed many victories. But she scored her biggest win when her sexual abuser was put behind bars on Dec. 3.

"I was finally free," Mallory says.

From the ages of 8 to 15, Mallory was sexually abused by a trusted family friend, someone she affectionately called "uncle." Like other victims of childhood sexual abuse, Mallory was shamed into silence. Her abuser also tried winning her loyality with expensive gifts and promises of money for college.

"He manipulated me into thinking that my family didn't love me, when in reality, they did," Mallory says.

For years, she kept a dark secret and buried her pain by doing well in school and such sports as field hockey, soccer and track and field. To keep her mind off the abuse, Mallory worked hard to earn a 4.0 GPA and countless sports achievements such as most valuable player, best forward and most inspirational awards, all for field hockey. At times, she turned to her horse, Derby, for comfort.

"The horses always listen," she says. "They can tell when something's wrong."

It wasn't until her junior year when she had to write an essay about emotions for her English class that Mallory broke her silence. Her essay detailed her years of trauma.

"I was scared and felt alone," Mallory says. "But I knew if I didn't take charge of my life now, then I never would be able to. I have kept quiet long enough."

Her teacher reported the case and soon, Mallory found herself explaining to the authorities and her parents for the first time what happened. Her father, Robert Aviles, a deputy sheriff with the Santa Clara County, says the family was shocked.

"This person was a major part of our lives, someone we saw once a month and on holidays," Aviles says. "It's not the kind of thing you think would happen to your own family."

For five hours, Mallory told a detective all that happened, right down to the last detail. She also made a pretext call and, after two hours of intense, taped confrontation, Mallory got her abuser to confess to everything. She wanted to develop enough evidence "to keep him off the streets and others safe," she says.

While it was a heavy weight lifted off her shoulders, standing up for herself marked the hardest period of her life, Mallory says. Nightmares haunted her sleep and her grades slipped to a 2.8 GPA.

"There was so much hurt and pain," Mallory says. "So much I was forced to remember."

Her parents gave her as much support as they could.

"We made sure Mallory knew we had her best interests at heart, no matter what the situation," Aviles says. The episode also pulled the family closer together.

"Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger," he adds.

By going public with her story, Mallory hopes to empower other girls in the same plight to stand up for themselves.

"It's not something to be ashamed of," she says. "I feel I went through this for a larger purpose. If telling my story can help someone, it's more than worth it."

Just as this chapter of her life closed, Mallory took another hit. Two weeks after the court case, Mallory lost her mother, Judy, to pneumonia.

"My mother and I had a great relationship three months before she passed away," Mallory says. "We were the best of friends."

On top of schoolwork and all her sports activities, Mallory has been trying to help out at home and take care of her 8-year-old sister.

The family is doing what they can to cope, Aviles says.

"We pulled together, cried together when we needed to, and we're moving forward to make the best out of a lousy situation."

With the money from the REACH Youth Scholarship and $4,000 from a Blossom Valley Athletic League scholarship, Mallory intends to pursue veterinary studies at UC-Davis and hopes to become a doctor who focuses on large animal care. She also plans to join the college's equestrian team, as her mother did in her own college days.

"That is one way I know I can be with her," Mallory says.

Battling cancer

For Brad, it was a race against time.

When he was in sixth grade at Willow Glen Middle School, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a common childhood bone cancer. It dashed his hopes of becoming a professional baseball player.

"When my parents told me, my first question was, 'Am I going to die?' " Brad says.

Thankfully, the cancer was caught early, but to prevent it from spreading, Brad had to make the difficult decision to amputate the lower half of his left leg.

"I could still stay active with a prosthetic leg," Brad says. "It was really up to me how far I wanted to push myself."

Throughout the yearlong treatment at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, Brad chose to stay positive. "It was frustrating because I'd been so active," Brad says. "Lying in a hospital wasn't what I wanted to do."

Support from friends and family helped. His mother, Rebecca Kompelien, says the family used humor to deal with the difficult time.

"We tried to be upbeat and encouraging for him," Kompelien says. We would tell little jokes to keep him laughing and help him have a positive view of all that was going on."

Their church, Hillside Church at San Jose, also chipped in. "They helped us with laundry, provided us with meals and gave us gas money for the hospital trips," Kompelien says. Brad's church friends also visited him regularly and encouraged him to hang out with them instead of staying home.

After 22 sessions of chemotherapy and the amputation, Brad's body was free of the disease. But he had to learn how to walk all over again.

"I had to slowly work my way out of a limp," Brad says. He recalled his first day of school at Willow Glen High where he fell and broke his left hip. "It set me back a few months," he says. "That was one of the most frustrating times of my life."

Just being able to walk wasn't enough. Brad was determined to find a sport he could participate in without having to run. A friend suggested he try out for the golf team. "I rarely played golf in my life," Brad says. "I was horrible, but since not many people tried out for the team, I made it."

Still, Brad wasn't satisfied with just being on the team.

"After my freshman season, I worked very hard to improve my golf game so I could compete with those around me."

His hard work and perseverance paid off. In his junior year, Brad became the No. 2 golfer on the team and helped his team win the Blossom Valley Athletic League last year, a first for the school. In all his golf games, Brad applies the lessons he learned from his fight with cancer.

"I compete to the best of my ability and do not give up because I know that I wouldn't be here today if I had given up on my life five years ago," he says.

Brad, who also won a $2,500 Horatio Alger scholarship, will use the scholarship money to major in cinema and broadcast arts at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles. He hopes to become a sports broadcaster.

"I realize how precious life is and to live each day like it is the last and to the fullest," he says. "My life has had challenges already and they have prepared me for the ones that are ahead."