Another top player at Massimo Eccheli’s court: Taylor Averill will be part of the central department of MINT Vero Volley Monza for the 2024/2025 season. Born in Portland (Oregon) on March 5, 1992, Averill is ready to live a new experience in the Italian championship, after the seasons played with Padova (2015-2017) and Milan (2017/18). Currently busy with the American National Team, of which he has been a member continuously since 2014, “Sunny” (this is his nickname) in the USA jersey can boast a gold medal at the 2023 World Cup in Japan and a silver at the 2023 VNL, in addition to the Gold in the North American Championship also in 2023 and the Bronze at the 2018 World Cup in Italy-Bulgaria.
The career of the new middle blocker from Monza started at the Bay to Bay Volleyball Club during his school years at Branham High School. In 2011 he enrolled at UC Irvine University (California), while in 2012 he moved to the University of Hawaii where he moved from the role of opposite spiker to center. Here he achieved his best results at university level, earning his first call-up to the senior national team with which he won a silver medal at the Pan American Cup played in Tijuana, Mexico. In the 2015/16 season he had his first engagement outside the USA, called by Pallavolo Padova; he remained in Veneto for two seasons, before moving to Lombardy to wear the colors of Powervolley Milano. In the 2018/19 championship he moved to France, to Chaumont: at the end of the season he interrupted his sporting activity due to physical problems. He returned to the field for the 2020/21 season wearing the jersey of Cannes, still in the top French division, with whom he won the Championship. In the following season, Averill’s career continued in Poland, wearing the jersey of AZS Olsztyn, where he remained for two years, before moving, again in the top Polish division, to Projekt Warszawa with whom, in the 2023/24 season, he won the CEV Challenge Cup by beating MINT Vero Volley Monza in the final.
“I am extremely happy to arrive at Vero Volley next season – Averill’s first words – I really wanted to return to Italy and Monza gave me this great opportunity. I can’t wait to get to work and meet my new teammates, as well as the warm crowd at the Opiquad Arena”.
