East Haven’s Milano makes tough choice
Sofia Milano started wrestling around the house with her brothers. Out came Sofia’s cheer mat, and, yes, her dad Dominic confirms there was some broken furniture.
Any other memorable casualties?
“A couple of my mom’s willow trees,” Sofia said.
Arborists will be pleased to know no trees were damaged in the construction of this piece.
“There were times when Sofia threw a couple of moves on my son DJ,” Dominic said. “And we’d go, ‘She should be wrestling! She should be wrestling.’ Momma Bear would say, ‘Nope, she’s cheerleading.’ ”
The Milano family is a wrestling family.
“I tell everybody wrestling is the greatest sport in the world,” Dominic said.
Dad was a successful senior captain at East Haven in 1993 at 152 pounds. His brother Anthony and his two sons were wrestlers. Sofia’s younger brother Alphonse is a wrestler in middle school. DJ won the SCC and finished third in Class M as a junior in 2020 before his dreams of a state title withered as the CIAC canceled wrestling in 2021 because of COVID restrictions.
“It was extremely disappointing, last year especially since other close-contact sports were going on,” Dominic said. “It was a difficult time for us.”
Enter Sofia, who has joined the more than 100 girls wrestling around the state.
Coach Mark Tolla asked Sofia if she wanted to help with the team this season. She agreed to be a manager.
“But she just wasn’t having the fun she was with cheerleading,” Dominic said.
“I was always sitting and watching,” Sofia said. “And then I was, ‘OK, I want to join.’ ”
“She was adamant,” Dominic said. “My wife Amy gave in and gave her (the) OK.”
That was three weeks ago.
So here was Sofia Milano waking up Saturday at 6:30 a.m. for an unusual — and
rewarding — 17-hour day.
The East Haven junior got to the high school in the morning cold and jumped on the team bus headed to Xavier High in Middletown for the SCC wrestling championships. Milano, who made her varsity debut last week against Foran, didn’t compete in the SCC, so she did what she does so well. She supported the team.
“Everyone was like, ‘Why are you in a cheer uniform?’ ” Sofia said.
There was a good reason. She had the SCC cheerleading championship at East Haven. Amy picked her daughter up at Xavier at 3:30 p.m. Sofia did her hair in the car. East Haven would perform around 6:30 and performed especially well.
“Our stunts as a team and our facials at the end of the dance were really good,” Sofia said.
When the awards were handed out at 7:30, Daniel Hand was named champion. The East Haven girls were thrilled with second place, the school’s highestever finish in nearly a decade and a half under coach Michelle Maru.
The team went out together to eat and celebrate. Sofia got home around 11:30 p.m.
“We were all very excited and we’re still celebrating,” Sofia said. “We were expecting to finish really good, but we weren’t expecting second place.”
Sofia started cheerleading in the third grade at age 8. She was watching her brothers play East Haven youth football and spotted the older girls cheering. She wanted in. It is not an unusual track for girls.
What attracted her most to cheer?
“Seeing the girls put in air as a flyer,” she said.
Sofia was a flyer until her sophomore year. She’s now a base.
“When I was in middle school, I was really nervous about competitions,” Sofia said. “It can still be a little nerve-wracking, but I’ve kind of gotten used to it.”
The nerve-wracking part?
“Having everyone watching you and trying not to mess up for your team because you all want to win really bad.”
Just like every other sport.
Sofia Milano has a simple message for anyone who is stupid enough to say cheerleading is not a sport.
“Just come to our practice for a day and try what we do,” she said.
Mic drop. Although she will continue to cheer on the sidelines for football and basketball next year, she has decided to give up the competitive aspect of cheerleading. There is just too much overlap. On so many days, she’s up at 6:30 a.m. and isn’t home until 7-8 p.m. because of wrestling practice followed by cheerleading practice. So Milano, an honor student, has decided to concentrate on wrestling next winter.
“There’s a lot of times when you are pulled in both directions,” Milano said Monday night after returning home from cheering at a girls basketball game. “Practice at the same time, competitions, tournaments. Sideline cheer, it’s fun, we can be ourselves, cheer on our classmates. I’ll continue that.”
More and more girls are being drawn to wrestling nationwide and the CIAC is having its first sanctioned Girls’ Invitational Tournament to run concurrently with the State Open on Feb. 25-26. Girls and boys compete against each other in the regular season and those who finish in the top six of the class meets will have the choice of wrestling in the State Open or Girls’ Invitational.
Milano, meanwhile, hasn’t wrestled any junior varsity matches. She wrestled her first varsity match last week against a boy in dual meet with Foran. She was wrestling up a class at 120. While Sofia, a 113 wrestler, lost by decision, she didn’t get pinned.
“She did a crossface (move) in the match,” Dominic said. “I almost cried and I don’t cry at anything. She did her daddy’s crossface.”
“I wrestled the full six minutes, which my coach said was amazing, being my first varsity match,” Sofia said. “I don’t think it’s awkward (wrestling against boys). I just don’t like when people assume we’re not as good because we’re a girl even though sometimes we’re better.”
Tolla said Milano could wrestle a junior varsity match Wednesday in a dual meet with Amity. He said Milano will wrestle in the state Girls’ Invitational.
Her schoolmates understand the family roots.
“They say you’ll probably be really good because you have brothers who wrestle and you seem like you’re tough,” Sofia said. “I don’t take any crap from anyone.” You go girl.
“It’s awesome that she does cheer and wrestles,” Dominic said. “Saturday, she’s out there cheering, doing her thing, smiling, her facial expressions. And then she’s out there in her first match looking like she’s going to take your head off. She knows how to switch the switch.”