27/06/2020 10:00
Transfer news – Taylor Sander chooses PGE Skra for his return to competitive sport
News from the clubs
Belchatow, Poland, June 27, 2020. The transfers ‘frenzy’ continues, with Polish heavyweight PGE Skra BELCHATOW announcing on Friday that USA’s outside hitter Taylor Sander will join their ranks for the 2020-2021 season!
The 28-year-old, 196 cm tall Sander was born in California, where he began his career, before playing collegiate championships for Brigham Young University (2011-2014) from Provo, Utah. After graduating from college, he turned pro playing for Calzedonia VERONA in Italy (2014-2016), with whom he won the 2016 edition of the CEV Challenge Cup. The next stop in Sander's career was China where he played for Beijing Volleyball. The American also spent a short period of time in Qatar, with Al-Arabi Doha in 2017.
After that, Sander returned to Europe to wear the shirt of Cucine Lube CIVITANOVA. While playing for the Italian standout, he secured a silver medal from the Italian Championship (2018) and silver in the CEV Champions League (2018) as well, after losing a dramatic final to Zenit KAZAN. Shortly afterwards, he departed from Europe to move to Brazil and play for Sada Cruzeiro. In the 2018/2019 season, he won the Brazilian Cup, the bronze medal from the national league and gold at the club championship of South America (CSV).
Sander has also had a successful international career with Team USA, with the highlights including a bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, a World League gold medal (2014), World Cup (2015) and NORCECA Championship (2017) titles, as well as bronze at the World Championship (2018). His resume includes a number of individual awards as well.
However, Sander skipped the 2019/2020 season to recover from a shoulder surgery and, as he claims, is now ready to come back and fight for the highest goals with PGE Skra.
“I am very excited to join PGE Skra! I am glad to join such a strong team in PlusLiga. I am also very grateful for the opportunity to play in this team. I had several transfer options to other clubs, but I knew that playing in the Polish league would be great for me as a volleyball player. PlusLiga is very strong and I wanted to play in one of the best teams in Europe,” Sander says.
“We had very long negotiations. When it became a fact that the CEV Champions League is coming back to Bełchatów, we made an attempt and I am very happy with this transfer. Taylor is one of the best players in his position in the world, and a leading figure for Team USA as well. I strongly believe that he will be a big asset for PGE Skra, which will allow us to compete at the highest level not only in Poland, but also in Europe. I hope he will be one of the leaders of our team,” says Konrad Piechocki, President of KPS Skra Bełchatów S.A.
“Taylor Sander is one of the players we can talk about as complete. He is very athletic, he spikes the balls from an amazing height. I still have a picture from Turin, from the World Championship, when we played against USA and we could not stop him. He is technically good in difficult elements like the block, he also has a good service... If we are talking about world-class players, then Taylor belongs to that group,” adds Michał Mieszko Gogol, PGE Skra coach.
Sander will soon join the PGE Skra team and, as he says, he is looking forward to the first training sessions with his new team.
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