Water-tapping is a kind of sport among utility workers, requiring strength, speed, and accuracy.

TACOMA, Wash. — We don't think much of it when we turn on the tap and water gushes out, but the process that gets H2O to your faucet is actually a fierce competition requiring strength, speed, and accuracy.

A team of women from Tacoma Public Utilities is getting ready to prove themselves on a national stage.

They gather a few nights each week to try and shave seconds off a sequence that's the bedrock of their work.

“Without this process, you would not have water coming out of your faucet,” said Jen Routh, distribution operations planner for Tacoma Public Utilities.

Routh is on the city’s all-women water tapping team. It’s a sport among workers who compete against other utilities.

They drill into a water main and connect it with a mock customer as quickly as possible. The Tacoma women’s team can do it in less than two and half minutes.

They recently won a regional competition, and they'll soon head to nationals in Denver.

“I enjoy it, the challenge, the experience,” said Kim Edwards, a water utility worker who used to have an office job and wanted something with a little more muscle.

“They're go-getters, they're here to win,” said Phillip Gouse, water construction lead, who is on the men’s team.

They’re pretty good, too.

It can be difficult to pull together a women’s team. There often aren't enough of them working water utility jobs in some cities.

Routh has a desk job but worked on water mains in the field for years.

“When you see water crews out in the street every day, this is the type of work they’re doing, but for them, they’re down in a four-foot muddy hole,” she said.

The team practices and competes on their own time.