By MARK SARDELLA

Danielle Resha of Salem Street in Wakefield came by her Super Bowl tickets the old fashioned way: she worked for them. Actually, she won them. But to do so, she had to pull her own weight – literally.

The 2011 Wakefield High School graduate and hard-core Patriots fan entered “The Live ULTRA Pull-Up Challenge” sponsored by Michelob ULTRA yesterday in Boston. Men and women in the Boston and Atlanta areas were invited to visit the designated gym location in their city and showcase their physical fitness by completing as many pull-ups as possible in 95 seconds – the same number of calories found in a Michelob ULTRA. The male and female in each market who completed the most pull-ups won a VIP trip to Houston for Super Bowl LI.

The VIP trip includes round trip airfare to Houston, accommodations and tickets to the Super Bowl.

The women’s winner at the Boston competition was Wakefield’s Danielle Resha, who completed 36 pull-ups in the allotted time. The Boston event was held from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Republic Fitness in Boston. But according to Resha, she almost didn’t make it.

“I was driving into Boston and there was so much traffic and parking was tough down there,” Resha says. She arrived with about 30 minutes left before the competition ended.

“Because I got there so late, I was practically the last one to go,” she says. “The top score so far was 31 pull-ups. I went up there and had 95 seconds to do as many strict pull-ups as I could. I got 36 and ended up winning the trip.”

For 24-year-old Resha, fitness isn’t just a hobby. It’s her livelihood. For the last two and a half years she has owned and operated CrossFit 128 at 581 Salem St. Resha says that she’s always been into sports and fitness. At Wakefield Memorial High School, she was co-captain of the Girls Varsity Soccer Team.

To say she is into football would be an understatement. She played three years as a kicker, fullback and tailback with the Boston Militia, a professional full-tackle women’s football team owned by Ernie Boch, Jr. It was during that time that she got into weight-lifting and strength training. Eventually she got into CrossFit and became a certified CrossFit coach before opening her own gym in Wakefield.

And rest assured that Resha is no casual Patriots fan. Her Twitter handle is @danipatriots. Even before she won the Super Bowl trip, she planned to go to Houston in hopes of scoring a ticket to the game.

“I already had my flight booked,” she says. “I actually had a GoFundMe account and people were donating to my fund to help me afford a ticket.”

On the GoFundMe page she writes that two of her life goals were “to compete at the CrossFit Games (already did that) and to SEE the Patriots win a Super Bowl (specifically with Tom and Bill).”

The only thing missing was a ticket to the game.

“My plan was to buy a ticket tomorrow,” she says.

That won’t be necessary now, of course. Resha says that she plans to donate the $652 she raised via the GoFundMe account to the Patriots Charitable Foundation.

All that’s left now is for the Patriots to win Super Bowl LI on Sunday.

With super-fans like Danielle Resha there to root them on, you have to like their chances.

[This story originally appeared in the February 3, 2017 Wakefield Daily Item.]