What was the first season of Pa.-sanctioned girls’ wrestling like? Let the people involved tell you.

First in an occasional series of stories about the inaugural season of PIAA girls’ wrestling.

Inside the Giant Center in Hershey last month, Brooke Zumas noticed a scene that represented the journey to make PIAA girls’ wrestling a reality.

Dozens of girls had gathered in the tunnels outside the matted area, where an usher would allow new competitors to enter as others exited.

Zumas, chairperson for SanctionPA, the nonprofit that for years has advocated for girls’ wrestling in the state, teared up as the boys’ competition neared its end.

“In some ways, it was so symbolic,” Zumas said in a phone interview. “The boys were already out there. The girls were waiting on the side for someone to let them in. Finally, somebody did. They were all smiling and clapping, and the crowd also applauded. They all understood the moment. It was one of those … ‘Oh my gosh, this is really happening.’”

» READ MORE: Ari Tyson won the first girls’ wrestling state title at Cherry Hill West. Her family helped power that success.

A voice on the public address system made it official: “Now, for the first time, girls, take the mats.”

Jodie Horger was also there. Years earlier, she had started a wrestling club in Bensalem specifically for girls so that her daughter, Julia, now a sophomore at Conwell-Egan, wouldn’t feel unwanted at coed clubs.

“There were a lot of emotional moments,” Horger said via phone. “I was sitting in the row behind Brooke and I think we both teared up several times.”

With the first season of PIAA girls’ wrestling complete, let’s take a look at some memorable moments, achievements, and issues locally and statewide.

“There was this feeling of intense excitement, accomplishment, gratitude, and really tears of joy,” Zumas said. “It felt like it was the start of what had been worked so hard for.”

Souderton coach Chris Atkinson is the vice chairman of Pennsylvania USA Wrestling. Atkinson said the fight to sanction girls’ wrestling in the state began as a grassroots movement around 2017-18.

When his daughter, MacKenna, now a freshman at Souderton, started wrestling in grade school, girls’ wrestling was still “taboo,” Atkinson said in a phone interview.

“You’d show up to a tournament and there would be two girls there and everybody would be like, ‘Oh my God, there’s girls here,’” he said. “We were in kind of the dark ages of wrestling, where girls still didn’t belong and didn’t have a place. There were times my wife would take [MacKenna] to youth matches and be told by opposing coaches that none of the boys would wrestle her and that they didn’t even know why we brought her.”

When this season ended, Atkinson said, the number of girls’ wrestlers in high school nearly doubled from 1,000 to nearly 2,000, while junior high participation increased from about 500 to 1,200. The number of high schools with girls’ wrestling teams also increased from the 100 the PIAA required for sanctioning to 183.

Despite battling a mysterious and potentially life-threatening autoimmune condition for the last few years, MacKenna Atkinson’s record this season was 30-5. She finished second in the 235-pound PIAA championships to defending champ Brenda Banks, a sophomore at District 11′s Panther Valley.

“When the PIAA put that out publicly and the girls were listed on that schedule, something about it, that was the day I think most of us shed the most tears,” Zumas said.

“I’m not sure if it was bottled-up anxiety or cautious optimism, or this part of us that wasn’t going to 100 percent believe it until we saw it. Once it was truly in tangible form, on PIAA letterhead, it really felt like the goal had been achieved. Even though we knew it was going to happen, seeing it come out that day — I won’t forget that. It was a day of tears.”

Palmerton won, 30-12, in the team result. Palmerton’s Samara Elliot won the first weight class by forfeit. Lehighton’s Cassidy Litts (142 pounds) won the first contested match, pinning Skylar Benninger in 4 minutes, 55 seconds.

Last month, Solorio, a senior at District 7′s Canon-McMillan, won the first PIAA girls’ wrestling championship, beating Neshaminy freshman Grace Nesbitt in the 100-pound weight class. Nesbitt finished the season 22-1 and is considered an up-and-comer in local girls’ wrestling.

Horger, a sophomore, finished her undefeated season (22-0) with a victory against District 10 senior Madilyn Enterline from Greenville. Years earlier, Horger’s mother, Jodie, helped start the Misfits Girls Wrestling club in Bensalem so that her daughter would have a place to wrestle.

It wasn’t the first medal ceremony at the PIAA championships in Hershey, but it was a moment so powerful it still elicits tears. Jodie Horger watched as the eight girls who received medals spontaneously clasped hands and raised their arms overhead in a triumphant display that still conjures emotions.

“It was probably my favorite moment,” Jodie Horger said. “Just the way, the girls all knew. … You got me tearing up again looking at that picture. They all knew how hard they worked and how much each one of them deserved to be on the podium, and that picture proves it.”

District 3 senior Eliana White-Vega from Cumberland Valley took first place after singing an impressive rendition of the national anthem before her championship match.

Marianna Bracetti Academy sophomore Julissa Ortiz finished second, despite missing a week of practice before the finals because of a concussion. Ortiz also was the first Public League girl to win a medal. Last year, she also was the first Pub girl to win a coed Pub championship. In solidarity, Ortiz competed in this year’s championships while wearing the headgear of a friend in the Pub who wasn’t able to wrestle.

The girls’ wrestling season wasn’t completely without hiccups. Marianna Bracetti coach Steve Soto said a misunderstanding of the rules meant delaying the creation of the school’s first girls’ wrestling team.

When the season began, Soto believed that girls could compete on the coed Pub team and still compete in the PIAA girls’ wrestling postseason.

Later, Soto said he was told the only way girls could compete in coed action and the girls’ postseason would be if the school did not have a girls’ wrestling team.

» READ MORE: Julissa Ortiz became the first girl to win a Public League wrestling title. She’s just getting started.

Ortiz, who won the 124-pound coed Pub title last year, defended her title this year.

Because Bracetti didn’t officially field a girls’ team, she also was able to wrestle in the girls’ PIAA postseason, where she was the only Pub girl to compete in the finals.

Next year, Soto, who has also been a volunteer wrestling coach at Beat the Streets in Center City, hopes to collaborate with other schools in the Pub to grow wrestling in the city.

“Right now the goal is to make MBA the new [place] to train for wrestling in the Northeast,” Soto said. “Right now Beat the Streets is the place. Sometimes, it’s hard for kids from the Northeast to get to Center City, so if we have a spot in the Northeast and a spot in Center City, I think the culture of wrestling will [benefit], the sport will grow, and the culture will grow so there won’t just be one kid making it to states each year.”