HOOVER, Ala. — The first home run allowed by Gabe Gaeckle all season wound up being a postseason game-winner for South Carolina.

Cole Messina’s second two-run home run of the game was the difference as the Gamecocks beat the University of Arkansas 6-5 on Wednesday to send the No. 4 Razorbacks into the losers bracket at the SEC Tournament.

Messina’s shot to center field in the top of the ninth inning, his 19th of the season, came after Gaeckle (3-3) hit Blake Jackson with a pitch to lead off the inning.

“That guy, I knew he had a really good fastball,” Messina said. “I sold out for the fastball, and he ended up throwing a slider, and just took my best swing. Didn’t really think I was going to hit a slider, but it happened, and took a good swing, and the ball got out of here.

Messina also homered off Parker Coil in the fifth inning after Coil hit Jackson with his first pitch of the game, and he delivered a one-out RBI single in the third inning to drive in five of his team’s six runs.

“They don’t really have too many holes in that lineup and we maneuvered through it pretty good expect for one guy, and he killed us,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said.

Four of the runs for the Gamecocks (35-21) came from players who reached via walks or hit by pitch and the other two runs were Messina’s long balls.

“Free passes, at this time of year when everybody you play is good, they’ll come back and get you and they got us today,” Van Horn said.

South Carolina evened its season series with the Razorbacks at 2-2 and advanced to a winners bracket game against LSU on Thursday evening.

“Two of the best teams in the country, in my opinion. Could have gone either way,” South Carolina Coach Mark Kingston said. “Cole drove in five of our six runs, so that’s the team I think we’re capable of being on any given day, and we beat one of the best teams in the country.”

Arkansas (43-13) will take on SEC co-champion Kentucky in the 9:30 a.m. elimination game Thursday.

The Razorbacks will turn to lefty ace Hagen Smith (9-0, 1.52) who held the Wildcats to three hits in a 10-3 win on May 3 in Lexington, Ky.

Van Horn was coy about what kind of length he would ask of Smith, who will have a much more important start in an NCAA regional in Fayetteville next weekend.

“Yeah, I don’t want to say much,” Van Horn said.

South Carolina built leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 4-2 on Wednesday and the Razorbacks bounced back to tie the game each time. They almost did it again in the ninth.

After Messina’s ninth-inning blast, the Razorbacks mounted a rally against left-hander Garrett Gainey (1-3) in the bottom of the inning.

With one out, Peyton Stovall, Hudson White and Ben McLaughlin hit successive singles, with McLaughlin’s sending Stovall home to make it 6-5.

However, Gainey got Wehiwa Aloy to ground into a force out at second that nearly turned into a double play. He then retired Jared Sprague-Lott on a fly ball to left field to end the game.

Arkansas outhit the Gamecocks 9-8 but did not fully capitalize on its scoring opportunities.

When the Razorbacks battled back from a 4-2 deficit in the seventh inning to score twice, the first four batters reached base before the inning fizzled.

Pinch hitter Will Edmunson singled to open the inning, then Kendall Diggs singled and Stovall launched a double over the head of center fielder Austin Brinling to drive in a run. Hudson White walked to load the bases, still with no outs, but all the Razorbacks got after that was a sacrifice fly by McLaughlin for the tying run.

“Just on our side it’s kind of a game of maybe missed opportunities,” Van Horn said. “You know we had a couple of chances to blow it open, instead of a two-run inning maybe three or four. One hit away. That was disappointing. Give them credit for pitching out of a couple of jams.”

Stovall, who went 3 for 5 to raise his batting average to .353, agreed with Van Horn’s assessment.

“I felt like we’ve done a good job all year of putting ourselves in those positions, we’ve just got to be able to get that big hit,” Stovall said. “And instead of maybe a sac fly or punch in one, maybe getting a huge hit and scoring three or four.”

McLaughlin singled to lead off the second inning against Eli Jones and scored on Sprague-Lott’s single the opposite way to tie the game. McLaughlin walked to open the fourth and raced to third when Jones threw Aloy’s potential double-play grounder into center field. He scored on Ryder Helfrick’s sacrifice fly to make it 2-2.

Van Horn was still doing his in-game interview with the SEC Network as Coil hit Jackson and Messina cranked his first shot to center field.

“Coil hits the first batter he faces, a left-handed hitter that’s somebody we really need him to get out, and then I was still finishing up my interview, so I’m not sure exactly what pitch [Messina] hit, but he hit it and I watched it,” said Van Horn, who expressed frustration that both of Messina’s homers came after Jackson was hit by pitches and that South Carolina’s first inning ran came with two outs after Ben Bybee walked two batters and gave up an RBI single to Parker Noland.

    Will Edmunson slides into home plate as he scores on Peyton Stovall’s RBI double that pulled Arkansas within 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh inning Wednesday against South Carolina at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Hoover, Ala. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Charlie Kaijo)
  

Despite a one-out rally in the bottom of the ninth inning, No. 5 Arkansas (43-13) lost to South Carolina (35-21), 6-5, Wednesday afternoon at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in the SEC Tournament opener.

Arkansas, the No. 2 seed, will now play third-seeded Kentucky in an elimination game at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, May 23, on SEC Network with Dave Neal (play-by-play) and Chris Burke (analyst) on the call. Razorback ace and SEC Pitcher of the Year Hagen Smith (9-0, 1.52 ERA) will start on the mound against Wildcat right-hander Trey Pooser (4-1, 4.34 ERA).

South Carolina fended off Arkansas all afternoon, opening the scoring in the top of the first inning before retaking the lead in the third, fifth and ninth. Sophomore right-hander Ben Bybee started on the mound and went 2.1 innings against the Gamecocks, allowing two runs on three hits and three walks with one strikeout before departing the ballgame.

After falling behind by a run in the first, Jared Sprague-Lott’s two-strike single to right in the bottom of the second inning tied the game up. South Carolina retook a one-run lead in the third before Ryder Helfrick’s pinch-hit sacrifice fly scored Ben McLaughlin from third in the fourth inning and evened the game at two apiece.

In relief of Bybee, fellow sophomore right-hander Christian Foutch was the first to emerge from the bullpen, firing 1.2 scoreless innings with three strikeouts to allow the Razorback offense to even the game at two entering the fifth. For the season, Foutch now owns a 0.86 ERA with 19 strikeouts over 21.0 innings of relief work over 18 appearances.

South Carolina used a two-run homer in the fifth to reopen a 4-2 advantage, but Arkansas punched back in the seventh. Following back-to-back leadoff singles by pinch-hitter Will Edmunson and Kendall Diggs, Peyton Stovall, who finished 3-for-5 with two doubles and an RBI, drove in Edmunson from second on an RBI double to straightaway center field.

McLaughlin’s sacrifice fly to left later in the inning scored Diggs from third, as the Razorbacks erased their two-run deficit to tie the game at four. Jake Faherty, meanwhile, tossed two scoreless innings on the mound with three punchouts, raising his season strikeout total to 21 while lowering his season ERA to 1.54 in 11.2 innings over 14 appearances.

True freshman Gabe Gaeckle worked the final two frames, striking out three but allowing a two-run homer in the top half of the ninth. The Hogs, however, would not go quietly when faced with another two-run deficit, scratching out a one-out rally in the bottom of the ninth thanks to three consecutive singles by Stovall, Hudson White and McLaughlin.

McLaughlin’s one-out single to left center scored Stovall from second and cut South Carolina’s lead to one, but Arkansas could not complete the comeback and, ultimately, suffered a 6-5 defeat in its SEC Tournament opener.

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They’re loud and they’re coming to Arkansas.

Two broods of cicadas are hatching across the state after more than a decade of dormancy and they have a lot to say after that length of downtime.

They are the loudest insect and their constant buzzing can drown out lawnmowers and even chainsaws.

“It’s always on,” said Cynthia Miller, who works at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro. “There’s no stopping. No pause. It’s constant. It’s like an electrical buzzing that goes on constantly.”

One cicada hatch, referred to as Brood XIX, is emerging across much of the southern U.S. after 13 years of dormancy. At the same time, Brood XIII, a smaller group that comes out every 17 years, is also appearing this spring and summer in the Midwest.

The simultaneous appearance of the two cicada hatchings is rare. The last time both showed up at the same time was in 1807. Entomologists say central Illinois – specifically, Springfield — is the area where the overlapping of both breeds will mostly occur.

Trillions of the winged, three-inch-long critters are expected to crawl out of the roots of trees and from underground nests. They differ a bit from the annual hatch of cicadas in Arkansas in that they are darker and have bulging orange eyes.

They’re not dangerous, said Jon Zawislak, assistant professor of apiculture and urban entomology with the University of Arkansas system’s Division of Agriculture.

They won’t damage crops or eat grass and plants like hoards of locusts, which people erroneously confuse with the cicadas. But they do burrow in trees and they create a nuisance when they begin hatching.

They also have an annoying habit of expelling jets of cicada urine when agitated.

Miller said she had to recently sweep out 60-70 of the cicadas that had gotten inside a building at the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

She also left a porch light on at her home near the park one night. The illumination attracted the cicadas and when she headed out to work the following morning, she said she was bombarded by more than 100 of the flying bugs.

There’s also thought that they attract poisonous snakes and areas could be overrun by them. Copperheads, one of Arkansas’ venomous snake breeds, feast on the cicadas because they are high in protein. Think of fat guys crowding the all-you-can-eat buffet.

“We’ve had several calls to remove copperheads from yards in Arkansas lately,” said Maria Abramson, a dispatcher at the National State Wildlife removal service based near St. Louis that has offices in Missouri and Arkansas. “A lot of callers say the snakes are right in their yards and they’re there because of the cicadas.”

She said residents should check garages, laundry rooms and play equipment in the yard for snakes. They also get trapped in netting used when residents seed their lawns, she said.

“It’s more in rural settings, but we just got a call from someone in Little Rock who needed a copperhead removed,” she said.

Molting Neotibicen Tibicen | Photo Credit: Ken Heard

However, Randy Zellers, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said the sudden surge of copperheads may not really be the case. Copperhead sightings generally increase during cicada hatchings because more people traipse in the woods in search of cicadas. While searching for the insects, people may stumble upon the snakes in their natural habitats.

Wild turkeys, other birds and even bass dine on the bugs, he said.

“They’re cool bugs,” Zellers said. “They’re little packages of protein. Hunters who kill turkeys will open them up and see they gorged themselves on cicadas.”

Zellers said he’s heard recent reports of the cicadas mostly appearing in south Arkansas near Arkadelphia, around Hot Springs and in the Mountain Home area. Zellers lives in Paron in Saline County and he’s not heard the cicadas. Yet.

Still, they could come. The hatching period lasts for a few weeks, Zawislak said.

They come out from their underground habitats when soil 8 inches deep reaches 64 degrees, he said. The cicadas only live for four to six weeks and during that time, they mate and their eggs will hatch within six to 10 weeks. The nymphs then burrow into the ground and remain “dormant” for between two to 17 years, depending upon the species.

They then emerge as adults and the noise returns.

The Brood XIX, named because it was the 19^th breed discovered, is located mainly in the southeast. Brood XIII will hatch more in Illinois and Iowa. In all, 17 states will see the swarm of cicadas this summer.

Tests have shown cicada choruses are often in the 80- to 85-decibel range. That’s equal to city traffic heard inside a car and gasoline-powered lawnmowers.

Some have recorded cicadas getting as loud as 111.4 db, which is comparable to being inside a car with a barking dog. Hearing damage could occur within two minutes, according to CicadaMania, a website designed to monitor the rare hatch of the two breeds.

“It may not be thick with cicadas where you are now,” Zellers said. “But the hatches take time. When they come out, you’ll know they’re here.”

Feature Photo: Brood XIX Cicada
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