Scholarships awarded to track and field athletes headed for Cal, Penn

Local running group Future Track Running Pack awarded $2,000 scholarships to two recent high school graduates: Sophia Grant of Newbury Park High School and Gabriel Chin of Thousand Oaks High School. The Conejo Valley club invites applications each year from graduating seniors at 11 area high schools who have stood out in track and field or cross country. This is the first year the program named two recipients; both students will compete in NCAA Division I — Grant at UC Berkeley and Chin at the University of Pennsylvania.

Grant ran four years of cross country and track, focusing on the 800- and 1,600-meter races, and qualified for CIF postseason competition throughout her career. She reached the Masters Meet in her junior and senior track seasons, posting a 4:50 mile as a junior and a 2:13 800 as a senior, and advanced in cross country both individually and with her team at different times. A Camarillo resident, she began organized training in seventh grade with the Camarillo Cosmos Youth Track Club and decided in her junior year that she wanted to run in college; she chose Berkeley in part for its athletic facilities and the academic resources for her intended engineering major.

Chin has been a hurdler since middle school and added the decathlon midway through high school, picking up events such as discus and pole vault during his junior year. The decathlon’s ten events include the 100, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400, 110 hurdles, discus, javelin and 1,500; Chin developed discus and hurdles as particular strengths and qualified for CIF Masters in both. In 2025 he placed fifth in the decathlon at Nike Outdoor Nationals, the first time he completed the full two-day competition, and he trained under Thousand Oaks coach Marlene Wilcox alongside teammate Chris Toppe. Chin missed part of his senior season with a torn meniscus from basketball but is rehabbing and expects to be recovered by the time he arrives at Penn; like Grant, he plans to study mechanical engineering. Future Track’s scholarship chair said the club had dozens of quality applicants and was pleased to recognize the two athletes. The running group, incorporated in 1993, holds practices Monday evenings at the Oak Park High School track.