Daytona Beach, Fla. -- The elite teams get a chance to play for a national championship.
The DME Academy Girls Basketball team gets that chance for the first time in program history at the GEICO High School National Championships. The squad is the second seed and begins play against No. 3 seed Montverde Academy on Friday, April 1 at 10:30 a.m. at the Suncoast Credit Union Arena in Fort Myers, Fla. The game can be seen on ESPNU.
DME (25-3) is ranked 10th in the country, coming into the national championship by ESPN SC Next, while Montverde (18-3) is ranked 11th. If DME wins the semifinal game, they will advance to the national championship game on Saturday, April 2 at 10:00 a.m. EDT (ESPN2).
On the other side of the bracket is the No. 1 seed New Hope (Md.), and they will play the winner of the play-in game between No. 5 Bishop McNamara (Md.) and No. 4 IMG Academy.
In their respective classes, three DME players are ranked in the Top 100 players by ESPNW. Junior Chloe Kitts (No. 16) leads DME in scoring (18.7 ppg) and rebounding (8.2 rpg). Seniors Sydney Shaw (No. 50) adds 12.5 points 3.0 assists per game, while Amiya Evans (No. 66) adds 8.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. Shaw is headed to Auburn next season, while Evans has signed with Central Florida (UCF).
“Our girls have worked hard this year,” said Michael Panaggio, Director of Girls Basketball at DME. “They have put in the time and effort to make this season a success, and we are all looking forward to playing for a national championship.”
For a complete list of where each tournament game will be televised on the ESPN family of networks and for more information about the GEICO National Championship, including ticket information, please visit geicohoops.com.
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Interested to learn how you can join the DME family? Learn more about our girls basketball program here.