diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 158f77e..33fdfc9 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -136,3 +136,4 @@ highscores_config.json
 deleted_backups/
 highscores_data/
 TODO.txt
+sql_tester.py
diff --git a/utilities/utils.py b/utilities/utils.py
index 5029655..5eeae46 100644
--- a/utilities/utils.py
+++ b/utilities/utils.py
@@ -219,23 +219,24 @@ def format_highscore_message(group: CategoryGroup) -> str:
             group = groups.get_group(category.CategoryId)
 
             # process data. Want each group sorted correctly and only top X results
-            group.sort_values("Score", ascending=category.IsAscending, inplace=True)
-            group = group.head(category.Size).reset_index()
+            processed_group = (
+                group.sort_values("Score", ascending=category.IsAscending).head(category.Size).reset_index()
+            )
 
             # add each score to list
             for ind in range(max_cat_size):  # need to subtract to deal with category name string
-                if ind in group.index:
-                    username = group["UserName"][ind].ljust(guild.UsernameLength, " ")
+                if ind in processed_group.index:
+                    username = processed_group["UserName"][ind].ljust(guild.UsernameLength, " ")
 
                     # get score, pad to correct length
                     if category.IsTimeRecord:
                         # MM:SS.ms is 7 characters long
                         # if there are single digit minutes, add a space for formatting.
-                        score = get_time_str(group["Score"][ind])
+                        score = get_time_str(processed_group["Score"][ind])
                         if score.find(":") and len(score.split(":", maxsplit=1)[0]) < 2:
                             score = " " + score
                     else:
-                        score = str(int(group["Score"][ind])).rjust(7, " ")
+                        score = str(int(processed_group["Score"][ind])).rjust(7, " ")
 
                     str_list[ind + 1] += f"{ind + 1}: {username} - {score}".ljust(pad_length, " ")
                 else: