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05/03/2020 12:00 AMAfter being cut from the North Branford volleyball squad as a freshman, Jenna Gall came up with a plan to get on assistant coach Jacob Sweet’s good side. At the time, Sweet was also head coach of North Branford’s Ultimate Frisbee team, and Gall thought that she could show him the type of athlete and teammate she is by joining the program.
What Gall didn’t realize is that Ultimate Frisbee was going to become much more than a hobby or part of a plan to work her way onto the volleyball team. Gall fell in love with the sport as a freshman and has stayed with it all the way into her current senior year. As the seasons have gone by, Gall and her fellow Thunderbirds have helped build up the program, while also building a bond amongst each other.
“I found a sport I love even more than volleyball, so it worked out well. There’s really this sense of community between everyone,” Gall said. “Everyone who plays it thinks it is a sport that deserves recognition. We have an even stronger respect for each other, because we are in this community that may be a little smaller than others.”
Last year marked Nicholas Filippides’s first season as head coach of the North Branford Ultimate Frisbee team. Filippides had served as an assistant coach for Sweet in previous seasons and also played the sport himself while attending college at the University of Hartford.
Coach Filippides helped guide the T-Birds to a record of 10-11 and a seventh-place finish at the Division II State Tournament in his first campaign as head coach. Filippides said that his athletes are starting to view Ultimate Frisbee as a true sport, instead of a club activity, in what is now the program’s 13th year of existence.
“If you ask any of my students who play Ultimate Frisbee, these guys treat it so intensely. All they do is talk Ultimate now. They’re living and breathing Ultimate Frisbee,” said Filippides. “It’s a sport anyone can play. You can pick up a frisbee and start throwing and come back and throw it again. You could be 4 feet, 11 inches and be just as good as someone who is 6 feet, 2 inches. It’s also co-ed. Anyone can play. It’s not a one-size-fits-all sport.”
As Filippides began his tenure at North Branford, he saw the Thunderbirds start their season by losing their first two matches. However, the T-Birds started to find their stride as the season unfolded and went on to take seventh place at the Division II State Tournament, defeating the Middletown JV team in pool play.
North Branford also took on eventual Division II state champion Coventry, losing by just three points in a back-and-forth battle. The T-Birds went on to face Coventry again shortly after the State Championship, and Coach Filippides said it was a contest that he will never forget.
“When we played Coventry at states, I told the head coach Mike Casey, ‘This is the last time you’re beating us,’” Filippides said. “We got to that field in Coventry, and it was raining sideways, but we kept playing. We were up 9-2 when we had to call the game. For us, we beat Coventry, the team that won states. I told my team I had to get them Dunkin’ or something after that win. Coventry won states. There was no way we could beat them. And sure enough, the team proved me wrong.”
North Branford posted 10 victories and placed higher in states than expected, despite the fact that many of its athletes had never played Ultimate Frisbee before. Filippides had to do provide a lot of instruction when it came to the fundamentals of the sport. However, he was pleased to see everyone on the roster show individual improvement as they embraced the team aspect.
“They see the people that are on the team. It’s just these guys and girls that are fun-loving and are known in the school as being respected and well-liked,” said Filippides. “They’re nice and smart people. Others just like being around them. Generally, people see their friends and know it is going to be a good time. Others are joining for the people and staying because of the sport, which is the best feeling.”
Senior Noah Vanacore remembers seeing advertisements for the Ultimate Frisbee team at a school fair when he was in 8th grade. As a sophomore, Vanacore decided that he wanted to sign up and compete for the team. Now a senior, Vanacore has come to enjoy the sport just as much as the people that he’s playing with.
“As soon as I joined, everyone was so kind. We were such a great team together,” Vanacore said. “In the very beginning, I did it with some friends, so I was never nervous about it. Our team is very close together, even to this day.”
Although North Branford’s season is currently on hold, the Thunderbirds had spent plenty of time working together on the field in anticipation of the 2020 campaign. The T-Birds’ athletes would meet up and throw as a group, strengthening their chemistry as they sharpened their skills. Now, everyone is communicating through large group chats in an effort to stay connected as a unified crew.
North Branford’s first year with Coach Filippides saw the T-Birds bounce back from a slow start to put their fair share of wins in the books. However, for the members of the team, Ultimate Frisbee is about much more than just wins and losses. As the program gets more recognition, North Branford’s athletes want to make sure other teams realize that the T-Birds are always going to provide a competitive matchup, while displaying great sportsmanship every time they take the field.
“I want other teams to think that we played them hard and that we were a respectful and light-hearted team that kept the competitiveness up without having to trash talk,” said Vanacore. “I always hope that everyone thinks of us as the nice team and a team you’d want to reach out to if you ever need help with throws or anything. I definitely hope that’s how other towns think of us.”
In addition to Gall and Vanacore, the members of the North Branford Ultimate Frisbee team are fellow seniors Emily Cirvello, Emily Olsen, Connor Fassett, Britny Gildersleeve, Krish Patel, Eli Roessler, Aaron Sadlon, Christian Tomaso, Kyle Williams, and Joseph DeLucia; juniors Jonathan Dacunto, Vasilios Maroulis, Emily Olson, Christina Riggione, Jason Stanford, Aidan Stoner, Corbin Hart, and Ava Raymond; sophomores Ashton Danner, Zachary Chittenden, Mila Iuteri, Carley Parente, Sheyenne Rivera, Delaney Norman, Liam Vander Wyk, Dane DeSena, Demetrios Teodosio, and Jacob Danner; and freshman Maiah Raymond. The athletes who competed for the team as seniors last year were Ryan Williams, Nate Gildersleeve, Ian McLay, and Owen Hanratty.