CRLS’s New Girls Ultimate Frisbee Team
July 11, 2022
Yes, CRLS has an ultimate frisbee team. You can be forgiven for not knowing because it just started this year. The team is coached by Ultimate player Eric Sebesta and currently consists of sixteen students—mostly underclassmen and a handful of upperclassmen—with wide-ranging skill levels. Building off of the popularity of the Frisbee club, this is CRLS’s first varsity-level Ultimate team. The team is also a rare example of a girls team without a male counterpart.
A quick summary of the rules of Ultimate: there are no referees, so players referee the game themselves. The seven players on each team play both defense and offense as they try to score in the endzone. Coach Sebesta explained to the Register Forum that “everybody’s throwing, everybody’s catching, everybody’s playing defense, it’s not like you have one skill set, you have a lot of different skill sets.” Sportsmanship is an integral part of the culture in Ultimate; there is an award for the most spirited team in the division—the team that exhibits the most kindness towards opponents. Additionally, since the game doesn’t have many rules, it opens itself up for opportunities to create strategies that work for the team, making the game infinitely flexible.
The team was founded this year by longtime Ultimate players at CRLS. Charlotte Younger ’25, a pivotal founder of the team, says “I had played frisbee with Ellie [Sebesta ’25] and [Coach] Eric … and before 9th grade we were talking about ‘It would be cool if we had a frisbee team’ … So that’s what he did.” Coach Sebesta is thankful for support from the CRLS Athletic Department, saying “Most Ultimate teams don’t get much. They’re lucky if they get a field … they get almost no budget.” However, the CRLS Ultimate team is treated the same way as any other team, with a field at Danehy and buses to and from away games.
The CRLS community also seems to be interested in the team. Coach Sebesta mentions that many teachers and students have been talking about the sport and its start at the school. Player Kavita Trivedi ’23 expresses, “It’s cool to give an opportunity to the girls to have a sport that’s not just because the boys have a sport … I think it’s a really fun sport.” And Elisa Egedal ’24 says “It’s exciting! I think ultimate is very underrated, but it’s exciting to know that people play it, and it should get more representation.”
The team, technically a varsity team, will play against many other towns, such as Sharon, Lincoln-Sudbury, and Brookline. The players are excited for the upcoming season, Rosie Schrag ’25 finds that “It’s a great environment … it’s really fun!” When asked if Sebesta had any goals for the season and the team, Coach Sebesta responded, “Our goal is to win the spirit award … next year, I want to win Girls Division 2 … It’s gonna be fun.”
This piece also appears in our April 2022 print edition.
