Her horse might buck her.

Milotta, the state's defending 100-meter hurdle champion, also spends around three of her afternoons a week practicing with her horse and was a reserve champion in the first level in 2002 — a year-end award for consistently finishing in the top two of all competitions in her level.

"I'm not really sure what it was that fascinated me," she said. "I was always on a rocking horse. I was always begging my parents, and finally for my 12th birthday I got riding lessons. They thought it would be a phase and I would grow out of it, but I never have."

She has translated her love of show jumping into a successful high school career in the hurdles.

She said she believes a lot of what she has learned from riding is applied to hurdling — and her coaches are a constant reminder of that.

"I jump my horse and my trainer will yell at me and it's the same things my (track) coaches will yell at me," she said.

"It helps her, it's second nature for her," Waialua track and field coach Sterling Carvalho said. "She's a machine. She demands perfection from herself. She wants to work hard. Even more than what we demand of her."

On Saturday, Milotta won the 100 and 300 hurdles in the O'ahu Interscholastic Association championships.

"It's because of her the track team is getting bigger," Carvalho said. "When she started, we had five runners, if that. We started this season with 21. We have a state champion, and now the kids know we can produce state-quality champions."

"It's because we have good coaches," Milotta replied.

"It's because we have good athletes that make us look good," he retorted.

Milotta actually began running track her sophomore year to stay in condition for fall sports such as volleyball and soccer. She initially started out as a sprinter, but after her first meet, decided she wanted to do hurdles.

Her height of 5 feet, 10 inches was an immediate advantage.

"Yeah, that kind of helps," she said. "I'm only like, six inches taller than everyone else."

She didn't start running track until her sophomore year because the previous year she was recovering from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in her right knee from playing soccer.

Her mother, Sandy, a pediatric physical therapist for Kapi'olani Early Intervention Services, said after the surgery the doctor was hesitant for Milotta to do her exercises at home, instead of at a physical therapy office, where she would be forced to do her exercises three times a week.

"She did everything on her own, I didn't have to nag," Sandy said.

"That's the kind of athlete she is," Carvalho added, and he didn't stop his praises there.

"She has so much on her plate, it's unreal how much she prioritizes," Carvalho said.

Besides being an athlete, Milotta is a member of the Waialuan, the school's newspaper.

"I've always liked writing, it's easy for me to express myself. Things are a little more powerful in print," said the editorial writer, who was named the paper's Most Valuable Staffer at the Hawai'i State High School Journalism Awards competition earlier this month.

She said her favorite thing to write about is the athletic department, and the column she's most proud of was when she exposed the inadequacy of the school's training room, "which was about the size of a storage room."

"The next year, they moved into a new place, so that was pretty satisfying," she said.

Milotta, who carries a 4.0-plus grade point average, will be one of three school valedictorians. Two of her six classes this year are Advanced Placement: U.S. history and literature. She is also taking trigonometry/pre-calculus, Spanish, visual technology (a media class), and newswriting.

She will attend the University of California-Davis this fall, and major in communications, but doesn't know if she will join the school's track and field team.

"I haven't decided if I want to run or not, because they have a really good equestrian program," she said.