She may be a girl in a world dominated by young men, but that has never deterred Reed senior Shanice Jackson.

One day as a sixth grader, Jackson and a friend attended a wrestling meet at Mendive Middle School. That's when she realized wrestling was her calling.

Now, many years later, Jackson is ready to make a splash at the Northern 4A Regional wrestling championships, one year after an ankle injury kept her from performing at her best. She hopes to place at regionals and maybe even qualify for state.

Although she only has a 9-8 record this winter due to missing some tournaments, she has scored points for Reed in High Desert League duals action. Jackson also placed second at the 12th annual Napa Valley Asics Classic this year, losing to the No. 4 ranked girls wrestler in the nation. Jackson has also been ranked in the top 10 amongst girl wrestlers at 132 pounds the past two years.

While high school girls wrestling isn't big in Nevada, California has its own separate state tournament for girls. Women's wrestling is also growing in the college ranks, and there's potential for elite women's wrestlers to take on the world's best at the Olympics now.

Continuing her wrestling career in college is a very high likelihood for Jackson, who has offers from Oklahoma City University and Jamestown College in North Dakota.

"Everyone thinks girls can't wrestle, but girls are going to dominate the sport real soon," Jackson said. "There are a lot of girls out there who are wrestling right now at the Olympic level and the collegiate level, so it's a very good experience."

She's looking forward to the chance to wrestle other girls all the time instead of being at a disadvantage by facing males, who tend to have more upper body strength.

"It will be fantastic. It will be a different change," Jackson said.

So how does Jackson still find ways to beat the boys? It takes a lot of hard work.

"I train hard in the wrestling room and work on technique," she said. "Technique can overpower strength on most days. I wrestle really, really hard and train really hard and it pays off."

Her coach thinks her attitude has a lot to do with it as well.

"Her intensity. That's the definition of Shanice, her intensity," Reed wrestling coach Dan Barraza said. "She's very physical. She has a lot of disadvantages strength wise. It's not an even playing field...She's at a big disadvantage, but she's not going to back down from anybody."

At only 5 feet tall, her lack of height might seem like another disadvantage, but it can also help her. A lower center of gravity enables her to stay low and take down taller male opponents. Jackson said she looks for openings for pins, but when opportunities don't present themselves, she'll just go back to racking up points.

She admits it was strange wrestling with the boys for the first couple years, but now it comes naturally. Jackson said her teammates are like one big extended family of brothers, although sometimes the freshmen coming into the program each year give her a hard time.

"We have a really good team. Everyone is respectful," Jackson said. "There will be some freshmen who come in and say 'oh there's a girl on the team', but once I wrestle them and I whoop their butts, they realize I can wrestle."

For the time being, she'll just keep grinding it out against the boys and enjoy her time as a crowd favorite.

"As far as the crowd, everyone roots for her. They want to see her be successful," Barraza said. "She's very, very talented. She'll do well at the next level. She'll go from high school where she's not even on the same playing field to college where she'll be on the same playing field and she'll be a lot more successful in college."