On Saturday, November 7th, DME Sports Academy (Daytona Beach, FL) traveled to Bradenton, FL for a showdown against Florida Powerhouse, IMG Academy.

While the stands weren’t packed and there weren’t any glamorous dunks or midcourt three pointers, or even any 5-star athletes, it was an exciting middle school showdown, which featured a ton of future stars. Gabe Stewart (8th grade) and Jon Powell (8th Grade) led the way for DME combining for half of the teams total 68 points, while 5th grader Camden Cooper put up 12 points.

DME set the tone early and led almost the entire game, but IMG Academy was able to keep it close throughout the game, but in the end, DME was too much to handle for the Florida Powerhouse and walked out with the 68-65 victory. “I’m very happy with the effort from our team, but I know we can be much better,” Head Coach Matt Panaggio of DME Sports Academy.

DME Middle School will be back in action this Saturday, November 21st at 11 am in an inner squad battle between DME Middle School Blue and DME Middle School White.

DME Alumni and Canisius College forward Jacco Fritz has maximized his minutes and role at forward in his first season of Division I Basketball. Netherlands native Jacco had an incredible rookie year, with three #MAACHoops Rookie of the Week honors. He is just the third Canisius player to earn this award multiple times in a season since 2006-07.

He also earned a spot on MAAC All Rookie-Team. Fritz is the 12th player in school history to earn MAAC All-Rookie Team honors. One of the highlights of Fritz season was his career-high of 16 points performance against Mercer University! He also had a career-high of 10 rebounds vs. St. Bonaventure. Fritz also is considered one of the “luckiest players” in the MAAC by growing an inch before joining the Griffs in the fall. 

Before joining, Fritz played the 2018-19 season here at DME. He averaged 10.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game at DME. He played in 25 games in 2018-19, where he shot 64.5 percent from the field, 40.0 percent from 3-point land, and 62.8 percent from the free-throw line. Jacco is now on the campus of Canisius during this pandemic and campus shut down due to COVID-19. Jacco expressed how he didn’t want to deal with online classes and the Netherlands six hours ahead of Buffalo.

We are going Instagram Live with Jacco (Friday, May 8th @ 2 pm) on his update, family, and basketball career, and will have a Q&A from the viewers. Ask this Netherlands native all the questions, from transitioning to the USA for postgrad and from DME to college!

You can tune in here at 2pm: https://www.instagram.com/dmesportsacademy/?hl=en

In September 2017, straight on the heels of Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria further devasted the island nation of Puerto Rico. Amidst great tragedy, a mother made the very difficult decision to send her son to Daytona Beach to live with family. When Derrick arrived as a high school sophomore, he didn’t speak a word of English but had a true passion for the game of basketball.

That is how he found DME Sports Academy.

As a commuter student, Derrick worked diligently on his English language skills and soon added other courses to his personalized learning plan. Outside the classroom, he took his raw yet very athletic basketball skills to the court and became a favorite of his teammates and coaches for his love of the game.

As his junior year began last August, Derrick became a full time Academy student athlete. As of now, his English skills have blossomed, and he is proud to be studying chemistry in English. On the court, his game is steadily improving, and he is hopes to earn a college scholarship.

In his own words, Derrick said that “I love the school, the social atmosphere, the workload, the interaction with the teachers and the students, and the flexibility to also focus on basketball.”

DME Prep Blue had an impressive win against #1 ranked IMG National Post Grad. DME came out of the gates scorching hot taking an early lead. DME started the game scoring a lot of their points in transition early. The first half DME played extremely hard, shooting the ball with confidence, playing great defense and battling down low for rebounds. Keegan and Kris Murray started the game very strong doing everything on the floor from scoring, rebounding, and playing aggressive defense. Trey Fort proved to IMG that they would have a difficult time guarding him attacking the paint or pulling from 3. At the end of the first half the score was 57-39.

The second half proved to be just as entertaining as both teams came out on fire. Neither team could get a stop on the defensive end. While this played to DME’s lead it would shortly change as IMG went on a run to close out the second half. With the score all tied at 100-100, the game was headed into Overtime. In Overtime DME started out slow getting behind by 4 early. Demetrius “Meechie” Terry would quickly change this around as he took over stretches of overtime with his energy and aggressiveness, diving after loose balls and pumping up the crowd.

He had 6 points and 4 rebounds late in the game. DME would hold off to win 113-112 in the “Game of the Year” according to OvertimeNxt.

Keegan Murray would finish the game with 36 points and 7 rebounds. Kris Murray finished with 25 points and 15 rebounds. Trey Fort also had a great game scoring as he contributed 19 points. Dalph Panopio added 14 points on 4/6 for 3’s.

DME Black also came out with a dominant win over IMG.

DME Black came out to a strong start against IMG Post Grad shooting the ball with a lot of confidence.

DME played a really aggressive defensive game. Karim Naja had an impressive 7 steals to go along with Quentin Risbrook’s 3 steals. Coach Kevin Kozan’s had this to say on his teams defensive effort “What helped us tonight was our 2-2-1 full-court press. It was able to speed up IMG’s offense and we were able to get out in transition and score easy buckets.”

Other than defense DME Black played very well together, moving the ball and finding the open teammate. Tyrese Haywood lead the team in assists with 7. “We doubled our assists to turnovers. IMG threw a 1-3-1 at us and we made adjustments at half and all of our guys were locked in. We were able to break the 1-3-1 a lot easier in the second half.” Bailey Stephanos lead the way in scoring with 23 points including 4 three-pointers followed by Jalen Dearring with 15 points.

DME Hosted the Christmas Classic including 12 High School Programs on December 19 – 21, 2019.

It was a great turnout with teams from all over the state of Florida as well
as some from out of state and was a great weekend of high level
basketball.

CHRISTMAS CLASSIC RECAP:

DME HS BLUE RESULTS
In a tough loss to start the weekend, Charles Davis led DME Blue with 18
points vs Spring Creek Academy.
DME HS Blue then turned around and played a tough program in Boca
Raton losing a close game 45 – 38. DME’s 6’8 Israel Griffin showed his
toughness and potential all throughout the game.
With the final game of the tournament, DME faced a very good program
and team in Victory Rock National. 6’1 G Sebastian Kinney came out on
fire with his energy and crafty finishing he finished the game with a game-high 31 points.

DME HS WHITE RESULTS
DME HS White had a tough loss against West Lake to start the
Christmas Classic. However, they bounced back big time the next day
with a win over FBCA 56 – 24. Sean Yan had a great performance with 20
points in the game.
DME HS White fell short on the final day against East Ridge 50 – 39.

 

You can check out the game on our youtube. 

You can check out the games on our youtube.

Activity

DME PG Blue and Orange traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for The Skill Factory Tournament this weekend and finished 3-1.

Day One started with Orange taking on Tennessee Prep and falling short 63-56. PG Blue took on SFG and came on top with the win 60-51.  
DAY Two consisted of both Post Grad teams taking on The Skill Factory. Orange took home their first victory of the weekend against TSF White 55-53 with Jaydon Cousins finishing with 23 points and 15 rebounds.

Next up, PG Blue took on #8 Nationally Ranked TSF Gold at the Invitational. Blue struggled in the game early, trailing by 17 points in the second half. DME began to string together with some big defensive steps and made a comeback late in the third quarter by cutting the lead to 6 points. DME defeated TSF 71-67. Big efforts by Antonin Kemkeng and Jeremy Golson. Kemkeng added 8 points and 12 rebounds and Golson shot 4-6 from the three-point line with 14 points. Jermaine Marshall had a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds.
This is the second win from PG Blue against a top 15 ranked team this season. DME Blue record is now 15-4.

PG Blue takes on 4A Academy Wednesday at 2:00 pm. Game will be live streamed here on our youtube here.

DME Blue suited up against the #10 Post Grad Team in the county yesterday night.
DME Blue traveled to Monteverde Academy to play for the first time in their season.

Blue came out slow, falling behind Montverde in the first few minutes. Fighting their way back into the game, DME Blue finished the first half only down three points.

Beginning of the seconds half, Blue started off slow trailing 11 points. Competing back and forth, Blue was down 3 points with 20 seconds left to go in the game. Jermaine Marshall hit a game-changing three-pointer with nine seconds left in the game. Jermaine finished with 24 points. With the game tied, Blue made a great stop defensively which led the game into overtime.

Blue came out strong in the beginning of overtime with a couple three-pointers from Jacob Traci and Jeremy Golson. Traci finished with 14 points, 9 assists, and 5 steals. Jeremy Golson added 15 points and Antonine Kemking had 15 rebounds along with 8 points.

Blue took the lead in the last few minutes of overtime with some good defensive stops to win the game, closing out the win 85-79.

“It was a great team effort, everyone contributed to the win.

Our bench gave us great quality minutes. Proud of our guys and it feels good to see the guys fight back into the game and get the win as a team,” Coach Wesam included after the game.

DME Blue next game will be Tuesday, November 13th at the College of Central Florida at 7:30 pm in Ocala, Florida.

DME Closed out an exciting weekend here in Daytona Beach for the Inaugural Beach & Ball Tournament. 16 teams were in attendance, including 4 DME teams, DME PG Blue, DME PG White, DME PG Orange, and DME Select, along with college coaches in the gym and watching on the live stream.

With many great teams and very talented prospects, some highlight players of the tournament include Rob Perry from 4A Academy, Jermaine Marshall and Jacco Fritz from DME Blue, and Josh Walton from Monteverde Academy.

DME Blue Jacob Tracy had a highlight moment after the tournament by receiving his first Division 1 offer after the first day of the two-day weekend.

The great competition led up to the 7:00 pm Championship game Sunday night against DME Blue and 4A Academy. It was a very competitive matchup. DME Blue fell short to 4A in the final, in what was a back and forth contest. With the game coming down to the final seconds, the game finished 88-86 with 4A on top.

You can find all of the games for the tournament here.

DME will suit up again with DME Blue vs RockTop on Thursday. DME PG White will also suit up this weekend in the Daytona State University Tournament this weekend.
Check out our Facebook page with photos from the tournament at DME Sports Academy.

DME Sports Academy is hosting their first Annual Post Grad Tournament this Saturday and Sunday.

This tournament is set to have 16 teams compete with the appearance of some of the Top Teams in the region. DME, Montverde, Skill Factory, Red Devils are some highlight teams of the tournament.

All three of DME PG teams will play this weekend and will defend their home court.

Tip-off starts at 9 AM with Red Devils Red and DME Orange Saturday morning. With this single elimination tournament and a 3 game guarantee, all teams will have a full weekend of great competition.

We’re expecting to have several college coaches in the building to watch the top level talent that’s taking part in this year’s tournament.

Livestream will be available for all who can’t attend the tournament.

You can click on the live stream here.