"When I step on the line, it's like wartime:" Pennsylvania girls' wrestling titleholders are fierce competitors
BUCKS COUNTY, Pa. (CBS) -- Girls wrestling is one of the fastest-growing high school sports in the country. And two award-winning athletes we spoke to come at it with a real competitive edge.
Here's how Grace Nesbitt, a Neshaminy High School sophomore known to pin her opponents in the first round, described it:
"When I step on the line, it's like wartime," Nesbitt said.
We got chills.
On this week's Focusing on the Future, we showcased Nesbitt and Julia Horger, a couple of high school girls' wrestling titleholders in Bucks County making history in the male-dominated sport.
Weighting in at 106 pounds, the Conwell-Egan sophomore Horger was her school's first-ever state champion.
Horger was the first Bucks County female to win a gold medal at the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state tournament at the Giant Center in Hershey.
A sign of the growth of girls' wrestling, it was PIAA's first-ever tournament in the sport after girls wrestling became state-sanctioned last year.
"It felt so exciting, I was really proud of myself and everyone out there cheering and all my supporters, I was really proud," Horger said.
Horger also finished out her season undefeated at 18-0, according to her school.
This young champion has been wrestling since she was seven years old, and back then there were not many girl wrestlers.
She used to attend her brother's practices and didn't want to stick to the sidelines.
"I used to be the only girl in practice all the time, and now when I go to practice I see a bunch of different girls I can talk to and wrestle with," Horger said. "It's really amazing to see how many girls are getting into it," Horger said.
Over at Neshaminy, Nesbitt got involved in wrestling after her father introduced her to the sport.
"This year I was known for the bar and that's how I won most of my matches, by pin," Nesbitt said.
Now she's a PIAA silver medalist.
"At first he was pushing me to do it because it's what he loved, but I didn't want to join because it was like one of the hardest sports you could ever do," Nesbitt said.
These trailblazers are ready for more young women to join the ranks.