VERMILLION, S.D. – South Dakota State University pulls out the victory in the Fourth Annual South Dakota Showdown Series presented by South Dakota Corn, with a final score of 16-11.
With a focus on helping to feed the state, the two schools’ student bodies stepped up in a big way in 2015-16 contributing maximum efforts to raise funds to feed hungry families. A new element to this series this season was the world record T-shirt challenge. Two students aimed to set a new world record of T-shirts put on in one minute. While they didn’t break the record, the two students put on 31 T-shirts in a minute and raised almost $12,000 for Feeding South Dakota.
“We are so grateful for the continued generosity of South Dakota Corn along with South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota for their support of Feeding South Dakota. There has never been a more unique partnership than that of these two organizations, teaming up together in their biggest rivalry yet, working to help end hunger in South Dakota.” Matt Gassen, Executive Director for Feeding South Dakota
“All season long both SDSU and USD have been able to showcase academic and athletic excellence with the help of the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council,” SDSU Director of Athletics Justin Sell said. “As Division I institutions, we are proud to place a high value on sportsmanship and community service to meaningful organizations, such as Feeding South Dakota.”
This season in the series showcased some serious competition with three games of the women’s basketball series being decided by six points-or-less, with USD’s women sweeping the two points awarded for the series. The Jackrabbits women’s basketball team won The Summit League Championship for the third time, while the Coyote women’s team won the regular season tournament championship. Both USD and SDSU women went on to play extended season games with the Jackrabbits advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament and the Coyotes winning the WNIT. The Jackrabbit men’s teams swept USD in seven of eight competitions.
The Series is structured against a point system in which each school can earn 24 points per year based on head-to-head competition and Conference Championships between SDSU and USD, in a total of 17 men’s and women’s sports. Points are also awarded for athlete’s GPAs and philanthropic efforts.
Feeding South Dakota is the state’s hunger relief organization fighting to eliminate hunger in South Dakota. Feeding South Dakota assists in providing temporary food assistance to 21,000 hungry South Dakota families and individuals each week.
Leading the charge for this initiative with South Dakota Corn and the two universities are Jackrabbit Sports Properties and Coyote Sports Properties, the multimedia rights holders for SDSU Athletics and USD Athletics respectively. Both are properties of Learfield, which manages multimedia rights for more than 120 collegiate properties. For additional information, visit Learfield (www.learfieldsports.com); South Dakota Corn Utilization Council (www.sdcorn.org) or Feeding South Dakota (www.feedingsouthdakota.org).