FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas football landed the commitment of 3-star quarterback Cason Myers on Wednesday.
Arkansas
Why Arkansas vs. LSU semifinal proves SEC still rules the College World Series
Arkansas’ Gage Wood throws historic no-hitter in College World Series
Arkansas’ Gage Wood tosses the third no-hitter in Men’s College World Series history as Arkansas tops Murray State.
NCAA
OMAHA, NE ― Maybe it was too early to panic about the SEC.
Long the nation’s premier baseball conference, the SEC got a record 13 bids to the NCAA tournament. But just four of those 13 teams advanced to super regionals and two to Omaha, leading to conversations about whether the league was overrated.
But those two teams − Arkansas and LSU − are two of the last four teams remaining in the 2025 Men’s College World Series after the Razorbacks’ win over UCLA to advance to the semifinals. One of the two teams is guaranteed to advance to the national championship series, with Arkansas needing to beat LSU twice to do so.
Whether LSU or Arkansas advances, it will make 16 times in the last 17 seasons that the SEC has had a team in the national championship series, with the 2016 matchup between Coastal Carolina and Arizona being the only season without one. Five of those series have seen two SEC teams facing each other, plus two more that featured now-SEC members Oklahoma and Texas when they were in the Big 12.
This time, the matchup of SEC heavyweights will take place in the semifinals rather than the finals; the winner will take on Louisville or Coastal Carolina.
Each of the last five completed seasons has seen a different national champion from the SEC: Vanderbilt in 2019, Mississippi State in 2021, Ole Miss in 2022, LSU in 2023 and Tennessee in 2024. Arkansas, which is seeking its first national title in baseball, could make it a sixth.
But it’ll have to go through the Tigers to get there. LSU won both the series between the two teams earlier this season and the opening game between the two of them on June 14.
“We played them four times,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “We lost in extra innings. They whipped us. We beat them. And then what happened the other night. I remember them all. The first game finished about 1:15 in the morning. And then we got beat later that day. Then we won on a Sunday … They’re really good. They don’t have any weaknesses. They’ve got big-time arms. Their top six, seven arms, all are big time at this level. They’ve got power, got some speed. You just have to pitch well against them and you’ve got to score. If we don’t score, we’ll be in trouble.”
The Razorbacks have their pitching set up relatively well. Top two starters Gage Wood and Zach Root are unlikely to be available, as are top relievers Gabe Gaeckle and Aiden Jimenez. But Arkansas has several other options, including Landon Beidelschies, Cole Gibler, Ben Bybee, Dylan Carter, Tate McGuire, Colin Fisher and Parker Coil. If the Razorbacks can win the first semifinal to advance to Thursday, Gaeckle might be able to return after throwing six innings and 90 pitches in relief in the first game. But LSU would likely counter with ace Kade Anderson, who shut down Arkansas for seven innings of one-run ball the same day.
If one of Arkansas or LSU can clinch the national championship, all the hemming and hawing about the league from earlier in the postseason will prove moot. And even if one of them can’t, the SEC has proven that even in a down season, you can pencil the league into Omaha until the very end.
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
Watch Dave Van Horn’s opening statement after Arkansas baseball’s win over Missouri State
Dave Van Horn dishes on what went right for Arkansas baseball in a regional win over Missouri State.
As cases of a deadly tick-borne cattle disease continue to spread across Arkansas, researchers with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture have received nearly $500,000 in federal funding to test potential treatments to protect cattle herds.
The Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station received a two-year, $492,218 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study ways to combat bovine theileriosis, a disease caused by the parasite Theileria orientalis Ikeda and carried primarily by the invasive Asian longhorned tick.
Emily McDermott, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology and project director for the grant, said the rapid increase in cases has created significant challenges for cattle producers across the state.
“Arkansas cattle ranchers are reporting significant losses of the herd, resulting in economic hardship,” McDermott said.
No approved drugs or vaccines currently exist in the United States to treat or prevent the disease, making the research especially important as infections continue to expand across Arkansas.
Researchers will evaluate two commercially available approaches that could be adopted quickly by producers if proven effective. One is a prescription anti-tick vaccine developed by Medgene for long-term protection. The other will test the slow-release parasiticide eprinomectin in combination with currently labeled tick-control products and compare its effectiveness to two pyrethroid treatments.
Theileriosis produces symptoms similar to anaplasmosis, another tick-borne disease familiar to many cattle producers. Infected cattle may experience weight loss, reduced milk production, loss of appetite, anemia and reproductive losses.
“One of the tricky things about Theileria is that it looks so much like anaplasmosis that I think a lot of producers might not be aware they have a new disease,” McDermott said. “We’ve heard the same story a lot over the last year: ‘I had a bunch of cows die, and I thought it was anaplasmosis, but it was weird.’”
Kelly Loftin, extension entomologist with the Division of Agriculture and a collaborator on the project, said one key difference is that bovine theileriosis can cause illness in cattle of any age, while anaplasmosis typically affects older animals.
Two genotypes of the parasite, Ikeda and Chitose, have been confirmed in Arkansas, including Logan, Franklin, and Johnson Counties. Ikeda considered it more harmful because it attacks blood cells and can be fatal.
Researchers say infections caused by the Ikeda genotype typically kill 1 to 5 percent of infected cattle but have reached mortality rates as high as 50 percent in some outbreaks.
“It’s hard to think of a tick-borne cattle pathogen that’s had this much of an impact in the United States since Texas cattle fever,” McDermott said, noting that Arkansas partnered with the USDA for decades during the first half of the 20th century to eradicate that disease.
The grant also includes funding for outreach through the Division of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension Service to educate county extension agents, ranchers and veterinarians about the disease and its transmission.
The Asian longhorned tick was first confirmed in the United States in 2017 and in Arkansas in 2018. The first Arkansas cases of bovine theileriosis caused by Theileria orientalis Ikeda were confirmed in 2024.
Since then, the parasite has been confirmed in 15 Arkansas counties, while established Asian longhorned tick populations have been identified in 10 counties. Researchers expect those numbers to continue growing and say confirmed disease cases in counties without established tick populations suggest infected cattle are carrying the parasite as they are moved from place to place.
Researchers are also investigating whether insects such as horse flies may be capable of mechanically transmitting the blood-borne pathogen between animals.
Loftin said the Division of Agriculture will continue providing information through webinars, field days, and its “Asian Longhorned Ticks & Theileriosis in Arkansas” website as the study moves forward.
Looking for something free to do this summer? Libraries across Northwest Arkansas are offering more than books—free meals for kids, puzzle collections, maker spaces, transit access and community programs. Staff say the goal is to provide welcoming spaces where residents can learn, connect and spend time without spending money.
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