USD Yotes Take Home DSU Cricket Trophy

 The University of South Dakota Yotes won the 2025 DSU Cricket Tournament at Baughman Park, beating Dakota State’s Raging Trojans 2 in the final. The round robin tournament brought together five teams from three South Dakota Universities held during each weekend that went for a month starting from September 6.

For anyone unfamiliar with cricket, here are the basics: it’s a bat-and-ball game where one team bats to score runs while the other team bowls and fields to get them out. Batters score by hitting the ball and running between two sets of stumps called wickets. The game is divided into “overs” – sets of six balls bowled. Each team got 20 overs in this tournament, which kept games around two hours.

The tournament included USD Yotes, DSU Raging Trojans 1 and 2, Gully Boys, and Silly Sloggers. They stayed competitive throughout the day with solid batting and bowling.

In the final, USD Yotes posted 96 runs and defended that total, winning by 10 runs. Chaitanya Posina earned Player of the Match honors with an all-around performance: 26 runs with the bat and 3 wickets with the ball. His contributions on both sides of the game made the difference in a close finish.

A few simple numbers tell part of the story. For DSU-2, Sai Anurag Illendula has 172 runs this season (highest run scorer). For USD, Chaitanya Posina has taken 13 wickets (highest wicket taker).In the field, a DSU-2 player Avinash Miriyala has eight catches, the highest number in the tournament. You don’t need insider lingo to follow that: runs are points, wickets are outs, and catches win tight finishes.

DSU team has been consistent these past few years. The team won the DSU Cricket League 2024 (Revanth A Memorial) for the second straight time and took the MS Infotech Sioux Falls Cricket Club Championship 2024 by 10 wickets.

The DSU Cricket Club organized the event and ran the campus league on weekends at Baughman Park. The club won several regional titles in 2024 and has grown quickly on campus. DSU’s International Office has been supportive of the cricket club’s growth and activities.

For many international students, cricket is a way to connect to home. The sport is a big part of life in countries like India, Pakistan, and Nepal, and tournaments like this give students a chance to bring that piece of home to South Dakota.

The fall season has wrapped up. The cricket club will announce more activities and events in the future.