RIVERVIEW — The Bell Creek Academy Panthers are perfecting their offense. 

Head Coach Willie Murphy’s game-planning is straightforward: if you earn the job, you’ll play. Whether you’re a boy or a girl. Which is why sophomore Abby DiCenzo gets a lot of reps. 

"She is a very special athlete, there’s not a single person out here that works harder than she does,” Murphy said. "From the time she gets out on the field to the time it ends, she is the hardest working person out here.” 

She may be small, but she’s mighty. 

"I gotta go up against the big guys, every practice and I’m the only one who wants to,” DiCenzo said. 

She recently made history. Last month, DiCenzo became the first female to ever score a rushing touchdown in a Florida high school football game. 

"You saw my o-linemen jumping, my o-linemen carrying me to the sideline, my quarterback running with me,” DiCenzo recounted. "I get to the sidelines and they’re like, 'that’s the first in Florida history', and I was like, 'that’s the first?’ When he said it then, it gave me a whole new meaning.” 

Murphy said DiCenzo earned that touchdown. 

"You can tell she earned it by the way her teammates reacted. That’s one of the things I was most excited about, I think her linemen were more excited about the touchdown than she was, they went crazy,” Murphy said. 

It doesn’t take long to see the respect she’s earned from her teammates. 

"We don’t puppy her, we don’t take care of her, she’s one of the guys, you know, she goes hard like one of them,” teammate Gabriel Almeida explained. 

Helping each other get better every practice. 

"They are my brothers because I spend every day with them,” DiCenzo said. 

After practice, she spends hours studying the playbook. Not only to make a name for herself, but for other young women too. 

"The respect comes from a lot of time and showing you’re capable of it because sometimes you lose the respect because you have a really bad day of practice, it’s always a battle, you’ve always got to fight for your spot.” 

Every rep of every practice, DiCenzo is fighting to prove that there’s a place for girls in this game. 

"If you want to play and you have that heart to play, play. Because you’ll have that one coach or those teammates that are so supportive that will stick up for you and get you in the game. “ 

Now that she has one touchdown under her belt, she’s hungry for more. Murphy says, she can accomplish whatever she sets her mind to. 

"She is a real-life Rudy. If anyone is, she is. She’s 5-foot-nothing, weighs 100 and nothing, but she’s going to outwork every single person.”