Rebecca Birdwell following her brothers' footsteps by joining wrestling team at Fergus High

It was bound to happen, sooner or later.

And Rebecca Birdwell of Lewistown's Fergus High School Golden Eagles chose to make it sooner.

That's right, folks: there's another Birdwell on the wrestling mat, as Caleb and Cooper's little sister followed in their footsteps and took her place in the circle at the 43rd annual CMR Holiday Classic this past weekend.

It marked the first time in the storied history of the tournament where a girls' division had their own competition.

With girls' high school wrestling starting to turn into a tsunami after making its debut during last year's COVID-19 season, why not?

The freshman — who says she's "about the same size as her brothers," including four-time undefeated Class A state champion Cooper — held her own at the Classic, reaching the title match in the Girls' 103-pound weight class and finishing second.

"I wrestled for ... like, a couple weeks in the fifth grade," Rebecca said of her previous experience on the wrestling mat. "I have been playing basketball, and I was waiting to do basketball this year, but decided at the last minute to go ahead and do wrestling."

When asked if Cooper — who took the last of his four state titles last February in Miles City — gave his little sister any tips, she had to gave that question some thought. A lot of thought, in fact.

"He just told me to do my best, I guess," she said.

The addition of a girls' division has appeared to be a popular decision, without putting any undue hardships on anyone. The tournament, which for many years was wrestled in six mat in the main gymnasium at the CMR Fieldhouse, added two more mats to the floor of the newly-christened Auxilliary Gym.

Besides Birdwell — who finished second at 103 pounds to Angelica Escarcega of Poplar — Cascade's Lily Grismer also likes the notion of girls' high school wrestling, although she admits there have been a few "ups and downs" in her own career.

But the loves wrestling at a Class C school, compared to competing at a much larger school like Great Falls High.

"I've been wrestling at Cascade since I was five (she's a senior at CHS now), and we're a really close family," Grismer said. "There's only 14 of us."

That's fourteen as in 12 boys and two girls on the Badgers' wrestling team, meaning her and her female teammate spends a lot of time grappling with her male counterparts.

"Oh yes," she confirmed. "Every day."

Grismer took the 120-pound title, beating Brynn Brower of Billings Skyview by pinfall in the second period.

Great Falls High's Kaylin Taylor earned the Bison's only championship, stopping Gracelyn Hanson of Senior in 1:28 in the 113 pound girls' final.

The Bison boys, meanwhile, came in third in the team competition with 154.5 points, behind team champ Billings West (231.5) and Senior (209.5). Belgrade and Glasgow, in order, round out the top five.

"We had a good fare of winners, and a good fare of non-winners," Bison coach Luis Carranza said. "Kaylin came through for us in the championship match. She looked great all tournament, great in the finals, and she's back to where she was last year.

"The boys had a lot of matches that were up in the air; winable matches. We've got some work to do. We're going to sit down over the break, fix some things, and hopefully we can come back bigger, better and faster."

Irish Furthmyre had a third-place outcome at 145 for the Bison.

Gavin Cotton and Brendan Lockart each wrestled for indidual titles for the Bison at 126 and 205, respectively, with each finishing second.

For C.M. Russell, their 15th-place finish was anchored by Calvin Carroll , who took third at 152, while AJ LaFurge was seventh in the 170-pound class.

"This tournament is a grind, especially these early season tournaments," CMR head coach Aaron Jensen said. "We had multiple kids win three, four matches; they didn't place but they wrestled very well.

"And then we had other guys get into the placing rounds and get eight matches in this weekend, so it's really good for early season development, and if you can place at this tournament or be competitive in it, it can say a lot on where you can be at the end of the year if you keep improving."

Billings Senior took the girls' team crown with 209.5 points, Skyview was a distant second while Kalispell Glacier took third. The Lady Bison racked up 36 points and finished 15th.

Avery Allen of Bozeman, at 152 pounds, and Cut Bank's 132-pound Mariah Wahl were the Most Outstanding Wrestlers of the tourney, as voted on by the tournament coaches.

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Montana prep wrestling: Another Birdwell on the mat at Fergus High