Player Highlight: Aiden Maier, Men's Volleyball

Critical moments in an athlete's life often take place when they go through significant changes, personally or in their environment. For Aiden Maier, this semester and the next four months looks like one of those moments.

The fourth-year from Regina has been a critical part of the Rustlers men's volleyball team in recent years and now has even more on court responsibility in 2025-2026. Lakeland's most vertical attacker is in a new role of being one of the oldest players on the court.

"Yeah, I've never been the old guy, I've always been the younger guy," Maier said with a laugh. "But it's cool so far. Getting to see the younger guys get their opportunity and see them grow on the court is fun."

"He's more of a quiet guy, so he leads by example," Coach Taylor Dyer said. "He has a big impact."

"His attack, block and height above the net is super important to be able to play at the highest level and compete against the best teams in our conference. But all his supplemental skills, serving, defence have gotten better."

As a result of the new dynamic on the court, Maier has become more vocal within the dynamic of the team, as well as encourage the new starters to mentally reset and respond well to adversity when things go sideways in game.

"One thing we've always said as a group is to be like a goldfish," he said. "Forget what happened, move onto the next play and do what you can."

Change has defined Maier's time as a Rustler. After moving to a new city and quickly becoming a starter in the middle, amidst many new teammates in a two-year span, Maier took a year off in 2023 and upon returning to the team, he moved out to right-side.

"He had a little bit of a learning curve, but he's coming into his own," Dyer said.

Just weeks into last season, Maier was sidelined by a recurring injury that kept him out of the lineup for several matches over the next two months, before peaking during the ACAC Championship. He said that experience of playing at home has been a highlight of his time in Lloydminster and added that the experience of getting there provided motivation to get to as a confident a place of possible with his game coming into this season.

"For me, just staying healthy and on the court at the start was key," Maier said." Now I can keep improving as best I can."

After the split over the weekend, the men's volleyball team find themselves just a few wins out of a playoff spot in the ACAC North. Despite the lineup changes, Maier said he's confident in the group.

"We do an A side vs B side in practice every week and B side still wins a lot," he said "Everyone has a ton of talent, I think we have the deepest bench in the league. Even on Friday, where Izmo Ueda came in off the bench and played well, we have that flexibility."

Aiden Maier is in the University Transfer – Bachelor of Arts program at Lakeland College. He and the rest of the men's volleyball squad are on the road in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta this weekend, where they will face the Briercrest Clippers and Medicine Hat Rattlers.