2021 Roster
Click on a picture to learn more about a player and their ultimate career.
#00 Genny De Jesus (she/her/hers)
During her early ages, Genny spent years as a failed child tennis star and track athlete. Genny credits Marly Relato for eventually introducing her to the sport at Rutgers University. Genny is excited to be back for the 2021 season and hopes to learn how to swim this summer.
#04 Stazi Tangherlini (she/her/hers)
Stazi has played ultimate since 2012. She played in the inaugural season of Gridlock. She is a high school teacher in New York City.
#08 Kelly Hyland (she/her/hers)
Kelly was first introduced to ultimate while studying abroad at University College Cork, Ireland. Since that time she has had the privilege to play on a handful of Irish National Teams, including the European Championship winning women's team in 2019. Kelly's first club team was New York Bent, but she has spent the bulk of her time commuting up and down 95 to play for DC Space Heater and DC Scandal. Kelly spends her non-frisbee time with her dog, Rascal, and human, Luke.
#13 Becca Tucker (she/her/hers)
Becca Tucker fell in love with ultimate at Yale (go Ramona!), then jumped into the women's New York scene, playing with Ambush, then Bent when it formed, and now Gridlock and Rebel Rebel. She lives on a farmstead with goats, chickens and ducks, her husband, Joe Gara, and their three kids, Kai, Juno and Dion, who were all born at home.
#17 Margo Cody (she/her/hers)
Margo is half Filipino, half American and grew up in Singapore. She started playing ultimate in 2013 at Amherst College, where she was a proud member of Sparkle Motion. In the past two years, she has played club with New York BENT and won back to back Brooklyn Fall League Championships. While Margo has grown up all over the world, no place feels more like home than New York City.
#23 Andrea DeSabato (she/her/hers)
Andrea credits her brother with her initial exposure to the sport. She moved into focusing on ultimate after playing D1 lacrosse in college. Her first club team was AMP (2010). Andrea played the next 10 seasons with AMP (captain for 3 of them) before winning back to back championships in 2018 and 2019. Andrea captains and coaches many leagues/teams in the Philadelphia area and is an avid volunteer in the ultimate community and beyond. Andrea is known to get really excited about boring/disciplined plays and good decision making.
#33 Lauren Piontek (she/her/hers)
LP is a software engineer from St. Louis, MO. She got her start with the St. Louis Summer League, and has been playing wherever she's lived since. In 2018, she co-founded now-PUL team Indianapolis Red and a year later migrated north to New York where she played Gridlock's first season.
#88 Nicole Hair (she/her/hers)
Nikki Hair grew up in a family that revolved around sports. Having 11 siblings made it so that there was always at least a few people down for a game of soccer. She started her ultimate career at Drew University, her love for beach ultimate helped grow her passion for the sport, and she is excited to play another year with NY Gridlock
#01 Kami Groom (she/her/hers)
"Zoom Zoom" Kami Groom found ultimate at WashU in St. Louis in 2009. She has won national championships with Boston Brute Squad in 2015, 2016, and 2019 and world championships with Team USA in 2013 and 2016. When she's not playing ultimate, Kami is an aspiring human rights attorney, an avid consumer of fantasy novels, and a wannabe tennis star.
#05 Lindsay McKenna (she/her/hers)
Lindsay began playing ultimate in college at West Chester University, where she played a pivotal role in taking their team to their first ever D1 Nationals in 2018. After that success in 2018, Lindsay went on to play for Gridlock's Inaugural season as well as be selected to play for the United States U24 Mixed National team. The team competed in Heidelberg, Germany and went on to win GOLD! Lindsay has now been a part of New York Gridlock for 3 years and is very excited about this year's team and possibilities.
#09 Natalie Bova (she/her/hers)
Natalie Bova graduated from the University of Delaware where she played with Sideshow Ultimate from 2014-2019. She has played with Philadelphia AMP from 2016-2019 where the team won the National Championship back to back in 2018 and 2019!
#14 Tulsa Douglas (she/her/hers)
Tulsa started playing ultimate in Amherst, MA and continued at St. Olaf college where she captained her team to a DIII national title. Tulsa played on the 2018 U24 USA women's national team and currently plays for Brute Squad winning a national championship in 2019. Tulsa currently coaches the Northeastern Valkyries, hosts the podcast Share the Air, enjoys dogs, playing pickleball, and being outside.
#18 Wei Gao (she/her/hers)
Wei has played frisbee for 7 years on club teams in the DC and NYC regions - most recently with NY BENT. In 2016, she played at WUGC in London, England with team China mixed, who finished the tournament in last place (but they had fun!). She is excited to return this year to play with NY Gridlock.
#24 Casey Gorman (she/her/hers)
Casey lives in Collingswood, New Jersey and has played ultimate competitively in Philadelphia and DC. Outside of traveling all the time to play ultimate, she is the executive director of a patient advocacy nonprofit and just adopted a retired racing greyhound.
#40 Amelia Cuarenta (she/her/hers)
Forty is a neuroscientist doing her postdoc research at Temple University with a focus on addiction and epigenetic mechanisms. Originally from Milwaukee, WI she got her start in ultimate at the University of Wisconsin. She played on Bella Donna for four years and played club for NOISE and Madison Heist. Forty is passionate about giving back to the next generation of players which is why she has coached for 5 years—three of them at the high school level and then most recently as the head coach of her alma mater, Bella Donna. In her free time Forty enjoys camping, hiking, and cooking. She does not yet have a dog but is on the hunt for her fur-ever buddy.
#99 Veronica Kolegue-Spalaris (she/her/hers)
KSpa currently lives in Albany with her partner and 2 cats, working as a Software Engineer. She has heavily impacted the growth of the Albany ultimate community for the past 10 years. In college she helped re-establish the SUNY Albany Women's team, whom she now coaches. In 2019 she co-founded and captained a new women's team, Rebel Rebel, which is hot off a successful season. She has been an integral part of organizing New York Warmup for the past 3 years and is currently the Northeast Women's Regional Coordinator for the club scene.
#02 Brittany Kaplan (she/her/hers)
Brittany has been playing ultimate since 2000. She learned how to play at Amherst High School, continued at Vassar College, and has been involved as a player or coach on NYC's women's club team, BENT, since 2012. Professionally, Brittany is a documentary video editor. She is also Gridlock's Video Consultant this season.
#06 Janine Hlavaty (she/her/hers)
Janine has been playing frisbee for 6 years and currently coaches Rutgers Nightshade. She is also active in the NJ youth community and coaches local high schools. Janine is a geologist and really loves any puns related to rocks/geology words.
#10 Tricia Smit (she/her/hers)
Tricia started playing ultimate in 2006 at Denison University, where she founded the women's program in addition to playing on and captaining the open team. She currently is captaining and playing for XIST and enjoys traveling, baking, rock climbing, and working at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
#15 Caroline Turner (she/her/hers)
Caroline goes by Caro because “three syllables is too many for the field.” After finding ultimate at Brown University, Caro moved to the Hudson Valley and began playing club. She designs software for mainframe computers and her warm up routine includes listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy II soundtrack before every tournament.
#20 Karen Chalif (she/her/hers)
Karen Chalif is excited for our NY Gridlock 2021 season! Karen found her way to Ultimate at New York University when she was introduced to the NYU Violet Femmes at the school's club fair and from the first practice fell in love with the sport. Karen has played with women's club team BENT as well as co-founded, captained, and played with mixed club teams FLI and XIST. She has been competing with XIST the last three seasons. In her non-frisbee life, Karen is a Middle School Assistant Principal and enjoys playing music and cycling.
#25 Kyla Dayer (she/her/hers)
Kyla began playing ultimate in 2011 with the University of Rochester EZ’s and has played on several NYC club teams since 2014 in both the women’s and mixed divisions. Her current club team is NY BENT. In her professional life, she works in the field of public health as a strategic projects specialist.
#41 Martha Gregory (she/her/hers)
Originally from San Francisco, Martha started playing ultimate in high school. She went on to play at Kenyon College in Ohio, and Melbourne AUS before winding up in Brooklyn. She played for BKBC for two years before joining BENT whom she's been with for the past 6 club seasons. She played with the Columbus Pride in 2019. She has also coached the Stuyvesant High School Girls team as well as the Kenyon College Women's and Men's teams.
#03 Abby Cheng (she/her/hers)
Abby started playing ultimate at the end of high school, and went on to join the Oberlin College Preying Manti in 2015. After playing on the Manti for 5 years, and captaining the team for 4 years, Abby graduated in 2020 with the 2019 D3 National Championship title (the first athletic national title in Oberlin's history) and the 2020 Donovan Award. She has also played on NY BENT, and captained for 2 seasons. In 2019, Abby was selected for the USA U24 National Women's Team, who won gold at the World Championships in Germany. Most recently, she played with the Color of Ultimate at LA Throwback.
#07 Luisa Neves (she/her/hers)
Luisa has been playing ultimate for 8 years. She started her career with the University of Rochester EZs, and has spent the last few seasons with New York BENT. She's played for New York Gridlock since its inaugural season, and is excited for the team's return in 2021!
#12 Amy Zhou (she/her/hers)
Amy started playing ultimate at Rutgers University and continues to play with that Metro East chip on her shoulder. She has been fighting the good fight to remove the stigma attached to being a tryhard by unapologetically trying too hard.
#16 Abbey Stolowski (she/her/hers)
Abbey has played and coached frisbee for many different teams since she started playing at TCNJ in 2007, eventually joining New York Gridlock for their inaugural year in 2019. Of all the different teams she’s played for, she’s felt most empowered when playing for or coaching women’s. Abbey teaches middle school technology and is continuing to build a summer camp business that teaches students how to code.
#21 Linda Morse (she/her/hers)
Linda Morse’s Ultimate journey began as a freshman at Haverford High School in 2010. Linda played through college at the University of Pittsburgh where she captained her team to 3 nationals appearances and earned top five Callahan finalist recognition in 2017. Linda currently captains the two time reigning mixed club national champions, Philadelphia Amp, whom she has competed with for the past 4 seasons.
#28 Angela Zhu (she/her/hers)
Angela started playing ultimate 13 years ago in Amherst, MA. After high school, she played at Dartmouth College and began to play with Boston Brute Squad. She is super excited to be a part of Gridlock 2021!
#44 Raha Mozaffari (she/her/hers)
As a member of Philadelphia AMP, Raha has competed at two club world championships and 14 national club championship tournaments, winning two national titles in 2018 and 2019. Raha has represented the United States at the 2015 World Beach Championships in Dubai and 2016 World Ultimate Championships in London. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Raha recently just purchased her own dental practice in Philadelphia.
2021 Staff
BERNADETTE NORMAN (SHE/HER/HERS), TEAM ADMINISTRATOR
I grew up north of Boston and I started playing ultimate frisbee in fifth grade. I was immediately hooked and I've tried other sports, but none have ever been as fun or rewarding for me. In high school I played on the Junior Varsity team at Phillips Academy Andover for two years, and in college I played on the DIII club team Daisy Chain at Mount Holyoke. Over the past several years, I've gotten more involved in the sport beyond playing. During the 2019/2021 club seasons I was/am the Sectionals Coordinator for the Metro New York women's division, and I continue to help support NYGL in my new position as the Team Administrator. I'm so excited for us to get back out on the field this season and I can't wait to watch some live ultimate frisbee again!
KHUNSA AMIN (SHE/HER/HERS), TEAM EQUITY & OPERATIONS CONSULTANT
Khunsa Amin is an anti-racist, anti-colonial facilitator, trainer, educator, and organizer working towards a community-centered and liberatory society. Her work centers on thinking outside the box constructed by societal -isms and practicing a radical imagination. She currently resides on the occupied land of the Lenape people of the Canarsie tribe, also known as Brooklyn, NY.
She began her journey as an organizer in the New York City ultimate frisbee community -- creating policies that advocate for trans, non-binary, and intersex athletes, creation of an access-oriented youth summer camp, hosting equity trainings for the larger community. Through Both/And, her current focus has been on educating others on non-colonial youth outreach, with a budding expansion rooted in community care and Transformative Justice principles. Her areas of interest and expertise consists of analyzing and dismantling carceral and colonial logic, building organizational capacity to center community and relationships, and strategizing at the interpersonal level to affect the oppressive institutional and structural systems in place.
MAY PATINO (SHE/HER/HERS), SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
I’m from Colombia, I’ve been living in the USA for 5 years and love exploring NYC. I have a background in Industrial Design, and currently, I work as an interior designer at a major home improvement chain. I enjoy fashion, photography, attending art exhibits, and playing ultimate. I’ve been working with NYGL leadership since the inaugural season, and I love how it allows me to help progress women and non-binary representation in ultimate and how NYGL gives back to the community. I’m excited to expand NYGL’s online!
BRITTANY “BKAP” KAPLAN (SHE/HER/HERS), VIDEO CONSULTANT
Brittany “Bkap” Kaplan (she/her) has been working in the NYC documentary film industry for the past decade. In 2019 and 2020 she produced short documentaries for NYGL and served as NYGL’s director of video. Brittany has been a rostered player on NYGL since 2019. She is passionate about using video to highlight both athletic plays and personal stories of athletes.
JACK MCGOVERN (HE/HIM/HIS), VIDEOGRAPHER
Jack McGovern is a New York City based documentary filmmaker/cinematographer, ultimate frisbee player, and meditation enthusiast. As a cinematographer, Jack incorporates sensitivity, empathy, and curiosity to capture cinematic images that uphold the dignity of his subjects. He is excited to work with New York Gridlock for a second year as the team's official videographer, capturing the intensity of Gridlock's play on the field as well as their dedication to activism and community engagement off of it.
In his other work, Jack is in production for an introspective short doc, Capsized, about how meditation saved his life in an ocean kayaking accident. He is also co-producing a five-part documentary-series with Winton duPont Films about a class of boarding school students who graduated in the midst of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement in 1971.
LUISA NEVES (SHE/HER/HERS), WEBSITE MANAGER
Luisa Neves is visual designer and developer who particularly enjoys working on websites and web apps. She loves board games, video games, lawn games, and yes, frisbee games. She's been playing ultimate for eight years, with teams like the University of Rochester EZs, NY BENT, and New York Gridlock Ultimate. She’s excited to return to Gridlock for its 2021 season!
Luisa currently co-hosts the ultimate frisbee podcast, Share the Air, with NYGL teammate, Tulsa Douglas. She's excited about using the podcast platform to share the stories and experiences of more marginalized folks within the ultimate community.
2021 Coaches
IZZY BRYANT (HE/HIM/HIS), DIRECTOR OF COACHING
Isaiah "Izzy" Bryant returns to New York Gridlock Ultimate for the 2021 season as Director of Coaching. Izzy has been playing ultimate since 2004 and coaching since 2012. At the youth level, he has coached New York YCC Boys in 2012 & Girls teams in 2013 and organized the DiscNY Youth Summer & Fall leagues from 2012-2015. At the collegiate level, he coached the Columbia Women's team from 2012-2016 and the Columbia Men’s team from 2018-2019. After playing four years with the New York Empire; serving as a captain for three seasons, he joined the Empire coaching staff in 2018. Currently, Izzy coaches New York XIST, a mixed club team, and serves as a member of USA Ultimate's Board of Directors.
CARA BROWN (SHE/HER/HERS), COACH
Cara Brown started playing ultimate in 1996 with the open team at Gustavus Adolphus College (MN), and established their first women’s team in 1998. Post college, she played in Washington, D.C. with BNOGO from 2004 to 2006 and the first year of Scandal in 2007. Moving to the Northeast, she joined the newly formed BENT from 2009 to 2016 (serving as captain from 2011 to 2015). Cara played the Mixed division in 2017 and 2018 with XIST and Metro North in 2019. Since starting her ultimate career, she has competed at UPA/USAU club nationals seven times. Beyond playing, her true ultimate passion is getting more young people excited about the sport. She has been the Girls Ultimate Movement (GUM) Coordinator for DiscNY since 2016 running clinics for NYC girls. Cara also received a $2500 GoGirlGo! grant from Women’s Sports Foundation in 2019 to run an after school program at Beginning with Children Charter School 2 in Brooklyn, NY staffed by guest coaches from NYC club teams and NYGL. The experience highlighted not only the challenges, but also the need for after school sports for girls in all areas of our city.
ROGER CHU (HE/HIM/HIS), COACH
Roger Chu began playing Ultimate in 2007 in Memphis, TN. Roger has played on teams from Philadelphia, D.C., and New York, including as a captain of Citywide Special and a player on New York Rumble. Roger has coached Drexel University’s men’s team from 2017 and had the privilege of assisting D.C. Scandal during the 2019 postseason.
EILEEN MURRAY (SHE/HER/HERS), COACH
Eileen Murray started playing ultimate in Tucson, AZ in 1993. After moving to Atlanta, GA in 1996, Eileen first made the Ozone roster in 1998 and played her first nationals in Sarasota, FL that year. Eileen played with Ozone until 2006 and competed in nine national and 3 world championship tournaments. After retiring from the women's division, she continued to play in the mixed, masters and grandmasters divisions. Her most recent playing accomplishment was winning bronze with the Atlantiques in PAUC 2015. Eileen started coaching in 2001 for a high school boys team and has coached in the college, club and professional divisions (MLU, AUDL, and PUL) and was the head coach of two national teams (U19 women 2008 and WCBU Mixed 2017).