The Dutch Fork High School girls basketball team out of Irmo, South Carolina went viral Friday when they beat Lamar by a jaw-dropping score of 95-0. Dutch Fork coach Candace Bush insists she did everything in her power to avoid running up the score as the Silver Foxes hammered their opponent from the opening tip.
Bush told USA Today that, once she realized Lamar was a smaller school, she tried to get Dutch Fork moved into a different bracket at the She Got Next Tournament in Lexington, South Carolina. However, Bush never heard back from the tournament organizers, and the game went on as scheduled.
As soon as the game started, Bush knew it was going to be ugly. She claimed that Lamar took as few as five or six shots in four quarters of action, and the Lamar players sometimes turned the ball right over to Dutch Fork without any resistance.
"A couple of times they literally just handed the ball to my girls,'" Bush said. "We looked at each other on the bench like, 'Did she really just give it to her?' If I had known it was going to be that bad, I would have brought my JV girls to play pretty much the entire game.''
Once Dutch Fork's score crept into the 90s, Bush said her players wanted to hit 100 points, but she made them hold the ball on every offensive possession. Bush's mercy led to the 95-0 score that went viral on social media, but from her account, it could have been even worse.