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

Julissa Ortiz was about 7 years old when her older sister, Tatyana, then a freshman at Marianna Bracetti High School, inadvertently wrestled a Catholic League rule to its knees.

Last month, Julissa, who is now a freshman at Bracetti, became the first girl to win a Public League wrestling championship.

“I feel like my sister went through a lot of roadblocks,” Julissa said before a recent practice. “When she was in high school, there were barely any girl wrestlers. When a guy saw a girl wrestler, it was like the end of the world.”

Later, she added: “I just learned to never give up and not listen to what other people say, because this is what I want to do. So I’m just going to stick with it.”

Ortiz, 14, had hoped to compete in Sunday’s unsanctioned girls’ state championships at Central Dauphin High School. Last week, however, Ortiz was unable to compete in girls’ regionals after she weighed in one pound over for the 124-pound weight class.

Last month, with Tatyana, who is now 22, in attendance at the PIAA District 12 co-ed championships at St. Joseph’s Prep, Julissa won her first-round match but lost in the quarterfinals.

“For me, just watching [Julissa] grow,” Tatyana said via phone, “it just makes me feel happy because I feel like I’ve done my job. I feel like I’ve shown her how to pave her own way. Even if you’re a girl battling against guys. It doesn’t matter, as long as you put the dedication in. I am so proud of her.”

Julissa Ortiz hated wrestling. That may have been because her grandmother, Lydia Rosado, forced her into the sport after Tatyana expressed interest in the Beat the Streets Philadelphia wrestling program. In fact, Julio Ortiz, now a 17-year-old senior wrestler at Bracetti, also had to join his two sisters.

“I was just an annoying little sister, so I was always following her around,” Julissa said. “I kind of got dragged into [wrestling] because I was always with her.”

In those early days, Julissa joked that she often got into trouble for socializing during practice.

“Wrestling takes so much time and energy, and I felt like it was just too much,” Julissa said.

After about two years, the social butterfly became a bird of prey.

And on Feb. 11, she won the Pub title in the 121-pound weight class, beating Central’s Henry Hunsicker via decision in the finals.

“I just learned to never give up and not listen to what other people say, because this is what I want to do. So I’m just going to stick with it.”

“I feel like it makes other people see that I worked really hard to get here, especially since I did it my freshman year,” she said. “I feel like it’s an even bigger achievement [as a freshman], and so people are kind of shocked and surprised.”

Is she?

“Not really,” she said. “Because I believe in my skill. I knew I was going to have some tough matches, but deep down, I was like, ‘I want first [place], so that’s what I’m going to get.’”

Practicing every day, sometimes twice a day, certainly helped. Bracetti coach Steve Soto, now in his second season, said Julissa and Julio never miss practice.

Julio also won a Pub wrestling title this season. His best finish previously had been third place.

When she graduated from Bracetti in 2019, Tatyana’s best finish was second place.

Opening eyes, broadening horizons, and showing her siblings a new path, however, may have been the best victory of all.

In 2016, she said: “I remember from before I even started wrestling, I had low self-esteem, was always depressed or sad, and always thought I was alone. I joined the wrestling team and realized that I didn’t have to be like that ...”

She was a 5-foot-4, 106-pound freshman back then, and the eighth seed in the district championships.

That meant a match with top-seeded Tim McCall, a Father Judge senior who had never qualified for the PIAA state tournament.

By rule, Catholic League boys were not allowed to compete against girls, so McCall would have had to forfeit.

A few days later, an injury to a St. Joseph’s Prep wrestler rearranged the seedings and Tatyana and McCall were no longer paired.

That season, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia also amended its rule, permitting boys to wrestle girls in the PIAA postseason.

Soto, who also coached Tatyana at Beat the Streets, said the positive attention she received brought more girls to the sport. She went on to compete in women’s wrestling at East Stroudsburg University, where she is currently taking a break from the sport and hopes to return next season.

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Now, Soto added, Julissa’s success has had a similar effect.

“I feel we’re getting somewhere because when I first started wrestling, there were no girls,” Julissa said. “Now when I go to a [co-ed] tournament, I’ll see five to 10 girls in different brackets, and I always become friends with them.”

Wrestling boys for her isn’t new. Neither are the challenges some present.

“Some of the guys are sore losers,” Julissa said. “Some of them are sweet and nice. It’s kind of what I grew up with in the sport, so it’s nothing different.”

Wrestling against girls, she added, is a welcome change.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love Beat the Streets,” she said. “I grew up here. But I feel like it’s different when I’m in a room full of girls. It’s kind of like we share the same experiences.”

Jodie Horger, who runs Misfits Girls Wrestling in Bensalem, took Julissa and a group of girls to Washington, D.C., last summer to promote girls’ wrestling.

The hope, Horger said via phone, was to grow the sport and lobby for girls’ wrestling to become a sanctioned sport in Pennsylvania.

Horger said there are more than 100 schools in the commonwealth that have enough girls to field wrestling teams. To that end, SanctionPA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing participation in the sport, recently filed an application with the PIAA, which governs high school sports, to formally sanction girls’ wrestling.

» READ MORE: Girls’ wrestling is on the cusp of being sanctioned by the PIAA. Here’s where it stands.

Horger, who has a son and daughter currently wrestling in high school, is hopeful girls’ wrestling will be sanctioned next spring.

For Tatyana, it is a source of pride to watch Julissa grow girls’ wrestling and see Julio grow as a person because of wrestling. She also hopes there’s a lesson others can follow.

“I wanted to be a role model for them, so I’ve tried to show that you can do anything if you put your mind to it,” she said. “The three of us have been through things, and we’ve all pulled through the hardships. I’m really proud of them. There are a lot of people who need to know that if they are going through something, they can get out of it. My sister, my brother, and I are proof of that.”