BANGOR, Maine — Sigi Koizar and Aaron Calixte, guards on the University of Maine women’s and men’s basketball teams, respectively, will be taking on a demanding challenge this season.
Koizar of Vienna, Austria, and Calixte of Stoughton, Massachusetts, will be asked to lead teams with a sizeable list of newcomers or inexperienced players.
Senior Koizar, a preseason All-America East selection and a two-time All-AE first teamer, is the only Black Bear returnee who averaged more than five minutes per game last season. She led the Black Bears in minutes played per game (35.1), and she led in several other categories including points per game (17.7) and total assists (131).
Junior Calixte played 813 minutes a year ago, and that is 306 more than Ilija Stojiljkovic, who is second most among available players.
Troy Reid-Knight was actually second with 530 minutes, but he suffered a broken ankle in practice on Oct. 7, underwent surgery three days later and will probably miss the entire season.
Both Koizar and Calixte are ready to take on that leadership role.
“I’m going out and working as hard as I can in practice every single day. I want to lead by example and give them the confidence they need,” said Calixte, whose 10.8 points per game was third on the team. His 80 assists led the Black Bears.
“I’m going to talk to them constantly and make sure the guys are in the right spots on the floor. I’m going to be there for the guys,” added Calixte, whose Black Bears lost seven players, including four who transferred, and return eight letterwinners.
“He usually has the ball in his hands, he’s a very mature kid naturally. It all adds up to a big-time leadership role,” UMaine coach Bob Walsh said. “The kids voted him as one of the captains, so he has to make the guys around him better every day. We’re excited about that.
“He sets the tone with how hard he works. He’s a natural worker,” he added.
Koizar sees herself playing an important role helping the new players understand their roles and the system.
“Last year, everybody knew what to do,” said the soft-spoken Koizar. “Now we have a lot of new players who don’t know what to do, so you’ve got to know everyone’s role.”
She added that there are a handful of other returnees “who have strong voices and a work ethic, and that will help me out, too.”
She said even though the team has eight freshmen and two redshirt freshmen, “they are all very talented players individually. Now we’ve got to work on playing together and communicating. We’re all on different pages right now. It’s hard to get on the same page sometimes.”
UMaine women’s coach Richard Barron said Koizar is “quiet, unassuming, very humble and very hard-working” by nature, but he has witnessed her becoming more of a leader dating back to last season and spilling over into this preseason.
“Just the sense of urgency and what she wants to do for our program and for our fans is motivation for her. She’s willing to put the personal things aside and take on a role she needs to in order to help her team win,” he said.