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.