Bob Holdcroft might wince some, perhaps grimace or even vicariously feel the crunching pain when a brutish, on-rushing center levels his 5-foot-4 child, the starting hockey goaltender at North Allegheny High School.

Holdcroft, though, explained what he won't do.

"I'm not going to go jumping over the boards every time someone crashes into her."

Her?

Yes, Holdcroft said "her."

Holdcroft, an assistant coach at North Allegheny, is the father of Lindsay Holdcroft, the Tigers' starting goalie who has been doing more than just holding her own with the boys -- she has shined against them.

Heading into this week, Lindsay Holdcroft had the third-lowest goals-against average among PIHL Class AAA goalies, posting a 1.70 mark as she helped the Tigers to a 6-3-2 record.

She isn't the only female who knows what it is like to stand in the crease in a PIHL game, look out her mask and get ready for a brisk wrist shot from a testosterone-filled winger, either.

In addition to Holdcroft, Moon's starting goalie is Katelyn Pippy, and South Park's starting goalie is Katie Vaughan.

All three are juniors, play on all-girls amateur teams and aspire to play Division I women's hockey. In the high school season, however, they play against -- and with -- the boys.

They made similar points that Vaughan summed up succinctly: "I don't want the boys to treat me differently because I'm a girl. I just want to be treated like a hockey player."

In large part, they are. Well, that is after they get dressed in a separate locker room (of course) before joining their male teammates for a pregame talk.

But once the puck drops ...

"If you just walked into the rink after the game started, and they had their masks on, you'd never know they were girls, they would just be goalies," said Stephen Walkom, vice president and director of officiating for the National Hockey League, who lives in Moon and has coached Pippy and Holdcroft in amateur hockey.

"They work hard, they strive to improve and they are great athletes. Part of the story is that they are girls, but more than that they are just hockey players."

Naturally, there also is a "boys-will-be-boys" quotient in all of this.

At times, it can't be easy to be the lone female around a pack of 17- and 18-year-old young men, even if the girls have played with boys since they were young.

"There have been some things said in the handshake line in the high school games, like 'hey cutie, nice game' or 'hey babe' or whatever," said Pippy, who attends Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center.

"But my team is so protective of me, and I am thankful to them for that. The other thing is that I've learned that you just have to shrug it all off, too."

That said, when things are go smoothly, gender isn't an issue, but Pippy mentioned there have been times, particularly after tough games,.

That's when talk shifts from being a goalie to being a female goalie -- emphasis on female.

"If I have a bad game it isn't that people just say, 'that goalie played bad,' but they have to say, 'that girl goalie played bad,' " Pippy said. "I think that is the one negative thing that sometimes happens."

Truth is, the growth of young women playing hockey has been overwhelmingly positive.

Statistics supplied to the Post-Gazette by the National Federation of State High School Associations show a marked increase in the number of females participating in hockey around the country in recent years.

In the 1996-97 school year, there were 2,586 girls participating at the high school level -- on either boys' or girls' teams -- in the country. That number jumped above 5,000 for the first time in 2000-01, and hit 7,350 in 2006-07, when the most-recent data was collected.

Even as those 7,350 girls participating are dwarfed by almost 36,000 boys' playing, female involvement in the sport has undeniably come a long way, considering in 1990-91, less than 100 girls, nationwide, played high school hockey.

The reason for the elevated participation among young women, locally, is multipronged.

"Certainly, the Olympics have had some impact on the awareness of the women's sport," Mr. Holdcroft said. "Also, having Robert Morris, a Division I women's program, here in Pittsburgh has given players in the local area something to see, some example right here of what they can strive for and what they can achieve."

Bouncing between their boys' teams and their all-girls amateur teams can create a bit of a tactical quandary for these three, as the girls game is less physical and the boys game much more brisk.

"The speed is completely different, that is the main thing," Vaughan said.

"And the shots aren't as hard in the girls' game; they are much harder against the boys."

The pins inside Vaughan's surgically repaired thumb on her blocker hand prove that. They had to be inserted after a shot in a boys' game hit her flush.

All that comes with the territory, and the three understood things like that could happen when they signed up to play boys' varsity hockey.

"I think I'm past the point where I have to prove myself to the boys just because I'm a girl," Lindsay Holdcroft said.

"I just go out there and try to be the best goalie I can be. To me, and my teammates, no matter if they are boys or girls, that is the most important thing."