Dutch Fork basketball keeps rolling. Next stop: state championship game vs. Dorman
Dutch Fork is in a rare position in South Carolina high school athletics.
The Silver Foxes played one their best games of the season Saturday and knocked off Conway 71-52 at the Florence Center in the Class 5A lower state championship. Dutch Fork will make its second-ever state final appearance in boys basketball and will have a chance to join the football and baseball programs as reigning state champions.
“I knew coming over here, there was talent,” Dutch Fork coach Bret Jones said. “It just needed to be fostered. When I was at White Knoll and we would play them, I was like, ‘Wow, they’re really good.’ It’s year three and we’re in the state championship with a group that lost some guys to football that were really good players. We played our best basketball game of the year.”
Dutch Fork (21-9) plays three-time defending 5A state champion Dorman next Friday night at 8:30 p.m. at the Colonial Life Arena. This will be a rematch from the Class 5A football championship played in early December in which the Silver Foxes captured their fourth-straight title with a 34-31 victory.
In the basketball showdown between the schools, the Cavaliers will be going for their fourth-straight title as well.
Five players on the Dutch Fork basketball roster were on the field for the December victory over Dorman. Four of those played huge roles Saturday night. Especially key was freshman Jarvis Green, a wide receiver in football who scored 25 points and was fearless attacking the much larger Conway front line. All five Dutch Fork starters scored in double figures.
“That stretch at the end of the first half and the start of the second was big. It slowed their momentum,” Green said. “It was a great game plan by our coaches.”
It was Green and sophomore Houston Jones that keyed a 20-0 run that sandwiched halftime and proved to be the knockout punch.
It was close until the final minutes of the first half. Conway took a 25-22 lead with just over three minutes remaining in the first. The Tigers then went scoreless for nearly eight minutes.
That’s when the young Silver Foxes backcourt duo helped Dutch Fork take control. They combined for five 3-pointers in the first half and Green’s corner shot at the buzzer gave Dutch Fork a 32-25 lead, its largest of the half, going into the locker room. Those two scored eight points in a 10-0 run that ended the half.
The break didn’t slow the Silver Foxes at all. When Jones hit his third 3-pointer of the game in the middle of the third quarter, the run grew to 20-0 and the lead was 42-25. The closest it would be the rest of the way was 15 points.
“A 20-0 run will win you a lot of games,” Jones said. “Jarvis Green played great, Houston played well and Dimarco (Johnson) had some big baskets in the second half. Everybody played well. We’re clicking at the right time.”
The Dutch Fork defense is what spurred the run. AJ Knight, Jarvis McClurkin and Green all took turns getting steals that ended up in easy transition points on the other end. Conway (16-11) turned it over nine times during the 20-0 run with several of those being steals.
“In the second quarter, they take if from a close game to them rolling,” Conway coach Michael Hopkins said. “We couldn’t stop it.”
Knight chipped in with 13 points and Jones, Johnson and McClurkin all added 10 points for Dutch Fork.
Tonka Hemingway, the South Carolina football signee, led the Tigers with 20 points.
DF – Jarvis Green 25, AJ Knight 13, Jarvis McClurkin 10, Houston Jones 10, Dimarco Johnson 10, Smith 2, Washington 1. C – Tonka Hemingway 20, Timothy Steele 11, Huffman 4, Woodbury 4, Johnson 3, Terry 3, Grainger 3, Kinlaw 2, Brantley 2.
This story was originally published February 29, 2020 at 9:09 PM.