ORONO, Maine — Mark and Tracy Jandreau were washing dishes after a function at the Millinocket Baptist Church when they heard music emanating from an adjacent room.
“I thought someone was playing a record,” recalled Mark Jandreau.
Their curiosity got the best of them and they discovered the source of the music was their foreign exchange student, Sigi Koizar, playing the piano.
“She played the piano like nobody else,” said Tracy. “There isn’t anything she can’t do.”
Koizar, a native of Vienna, Austria, had never even taken a piano lesson.
“I looked on YouTube a little bit and kind of taught myself,” said Koizar, who has shared her numerous skills for the last four years as a member of the University of Maine women’s basketball team.
“She has a lot of hidden talents,” said UMaine senior Sheraton Jones, Koizar’s roommate for four years. “If there is something she wants to do, she’ll put her mind to it and do it.”
Koizar has been making sweet music in Orono for four seasons, helping the Black Bears earn two America East regular-season championships and an 82-48 overall record.
The senior goes into Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. America East quarterfinal game in Portland against Binghamton with 1,620 career points, seventh best in program history. She is third in 3-pointers (184), ninth in assists (361) and is only the 15th player at UMaine to accumulate 1,000 points and 500 rebounds. She has 525 rebounds.
The 5-foot-8 point guard is a two-time All-America East first-team selection and a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American.
“She is a phenomenal player. When you think of Maine basketball, you think of her,” said Binghamton coach Linda Cimino.
“And she has brought integrity, character and class to our league,” she added. “She’s a good representative of our league.”
Koizar’s senior year has been a challenging but productive one.
She was the only returnee who played significant minutes last season, after the team graduated eight seniors. As a junior, she averaged a team-high 35.1 minutes and was UMaine’s leading scorer (17.7 ppg).
This season, Koizar was hampered by a thigh injury that forced her to miss three games and significantly affected her in several others.
“She is one of those incredible players who doesn’t come around too often,” said New Hampshire coach Maureen Magarity. “You could tell from the day she first set foot on the Maine campus that she was dynamic. She has improved every single year. And she does it so [quietly] and gracefully.”
“She is one of the two hardest workers I’ve ever seen [along with Cindy Blodgett],” said UMaine associate head coach Amy Vachon. “She is phenomenal not just on the court but academically and as a person.”
Koizar again leads UMaine in minutes (34.1) and scoring (13.8 ppg), but her supporting cast includes six freshmen and a sophomore transfer. That means she has had to handle a number of leadership responsibilities.
“She is clearly a great leader. You can tell from how the young ladies react to her on the court,” observed University of Maryland Baltimore County coach Phil Stern.
“When we were up there [in Bangor], it was her T-shirt day,” where shirts with Koizar’s name and photo were given out to game attendees, explained Stern. “She couldn’t play because she was hurt, but she was still leading them [from the sidelines].”
Koizar also has demonstrated her commitment to excellence in the classroom. She has twice won the “M” Club Dean Smith Award given to UMaine’s top student-athlete and owns a 3.97 grade point average studying biology with a pre-medical concentration.
“She’s like a mother to us,” said UMaine freshman Laia Sole. “At the beginning of the season, she explained the rules and what we were supposed to do. She has always been there for us. We really appreciate her a lot.”
“She’s our role model,” said freshman Blanca Millan. “She makes you better every day. If you ever have a question, on or off the court, she’s there for you.”
Koizar admitted she has enjoyed her expanded leadership role.
“It has definitely been different, but it has also been exciting,” she said. “When you tell [a younger player] something and you see them get it right, watching that improvement is exciting.”
Koizar, who is averaging 4.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.8 steals along with her scoring, said she has been pleased with her four-year progress.
“I’ve put a lot of work in on [developing] my skill,” she said. “It has added a lot to my game.”
Her mother, Astrid Koizar, can testify to that commitment. “She has always been very ambitious and she has always worked really hard. She would never skip a training session. That’s because she enjoyed it.”
Koizar played soccer as a youngster, but when her father Manfred took her to watch her older cousin play basketball, she was intrigued. He took Koizar and older brother, Hubert, to a recreation league basketball practice and she has been playing ever since.
“What can I say? I really liked it,” grinned Koizar, who played on boys teams until she was 14.
Her brother had a positive experience as a foreign exchange student in Washington, D.C., and Sigi decided she wanted to try it.
The Jandreaus were empty-nesters and neighbor Alex Mooney, who played on the girls basketball team at Stearns High School in Millinocket, suggested they consider hosting an exchange student.
“On her application, Sigi wrote that she wanted to be in a small town and she wanted to play basketball,” said Tracy Jandreau.
She flourished at Stearns during the 2011-2012 school year and became a wonderful addition to their family.
“It worked out perfectly for her with her host parents,” said Astrid, who visits Maine twice a year and spends a lot of time with the Jandreaus.
Koizar averaged 23.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 3.2 steals in leading Stearns to the Class C North final. She was a first-team Bangor Daily News All-Maine selection.
“I was surprised by how much attention sports get in the state of Maine,” said Koizar.
She also played field hockey and softball at Stearns, sports that were foreign to her.
“I didn’t know what was going on in field hockey. All those rules. I still don’t understand them. I just ran,” quipped Koizar. “Softball isn’t my strong suit. But it was nice to be outside.”
Koizar enjoys the outdoors and doesn’t like cities.
“Millinocket is a nice place. There are a lot of beautiful lakes,” said Koizar, whose native language is German.
In the summers she sometimes accompanied Tracy Jandreau to her job at the New England Outdoor Center.
“[Koizar] would be out on a paddle board, a kayak or a canoe,” said Tracy. “She would ride a bicycle everywhere.”
Koizar returned to Austria for her senior year, but when she received a scholarship offer from UMaine head coach Richard Barron, she decided to return to Maine in 2013. She admits she wasn’t convinced that she was good enough to play at UMaine.
The Jandreaus have been like a second family to Koizar and they have visited her in Austria.
Astrid, likewise, considers Millinocket a home away from home.
“[Sigi] is a very, very talented girl. She is a humble person and she has a great sense of humor,” said Tracy. “And she loves family.”
Jones said Koizar is quiet and laid back but that she likes to have fun.
Koizar said she has been inconsistent shooting the ball this season, but hopes to find her touch this weekend as there is one thing she has yet to accomplish at UMaine.
“We haven’t won a championship,” said Koizar, who plans to pursue a pro basketball career in Europe after graduation.