NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent’s players played their hearts out in a nailbiter 3-1 loss to Vanderbilt Friday in a game that could have clinched the program’s first-ever appearance in the championship series of the College World Series.

All 13 of them, that is.

Avent, a beloved player’s coach and a man known for his accessibility to the media, was not looking forward to facing the inevitable questions that were to come in his virtual postgame availability after a bizarre afternoon that left the college baseball world on the edge of its seat.

Under normal circumstances, Avent would have loved to have bragged on the 13 players that left it all on the field Friday afternoon in TDAmeritrade Park, regardless of the result of the game.

He would have rather talked about starting pitcher Sam Highfill's remarkable three-hit performance in his first four at-bats of the season while the righty filled in at first base for the afternoon. Or the six-hit performance from his two reserve pitchers that were called in on emergency status, Garrett Payne and Dalton Feeney, who had respective season ERAs of 7.27 and 11.48 entering Friday's contest.

As great as those performances were, they were not the main story of the afternoon.

Friday was far from normal, even if the sports world had become desensitized to the postponements and cancellations that have become routine over the past 16 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over half of the Wolfpack’s travel roster to Omaha was unavailable due to COVID-19 protocols, and Avent didn’t want to talk about it.

“I don't want to discuss anything that happened today because quite frankly I have no understanding of what happened today,” Avent said at the end of his response to the first question he received Friday afternoon. “I'd rather not discuss any of that.”

But there were more questions to come.

“I didn't say I couldn't talk about it, I said I wouldn't talk about it,” Avent clarified when the next one came his way.

Although COVID-19 cases have reached a low in the United States, the virus still exists and can still ruin the plans of the victims unfortunate enough to get within its path.

That was the case for the Wolfpack Friday. One confirmed positive COVID-19 test, for now, was all it took to wipe out the majority of the program’s roster to the NCAA’s virus protocols Friday.

Because NCAA rules prevent vaccinated players from having to test for COVID-19, subjecting them to a less restrictive set of protocols, the awkward and personal, yet fair questions to come Friday evening were inevitable.

Did you require or encourage your players to get vaccinated? Was there any team policy on vaccination?

“We talk about a lot of things,” Avent said. “I've been coaching for a long time. And I think of myself as, you can call it a caretaker, baby-sitter or the guy that the parents drop their young men off and leave them in my care. And they've raised them to be the quality people that we recruit.

“And my job is to teach them baseball, make sure they get an education and keep them on the right track forward. But I don't try to indoctrinate my kids with my values or my opinions. Obviously we talk about a lot of things. But these are young men that can make their own decisions and that's what they did.”

You said that you didn't want to indoctrinate your players into your philosophy. Did you get vaccinated yourself?

“I'll tell you what, I'm not going to talk about that,” Avent said. “If you want to talk baseball, we can talk baseball. If you want to talk politics or stuff like that, you can go talk to my head of sports medicine, Rob Murphy.”

Avent stuck to his word. He didn’t want to talk about the COVID situation within his program that became viral news while on the national stage in Omaha.

But not only did he not want to talk about it, he admitted he had many of the same questions himself that the reporters were asking him. For the NC State baseball program, the afternoon was as confusing as it was frustrating.

“I have no idea what's going on, zero,” Avent said. “You know as much as I know. It just hasn't been communicated. I know this is an odd situation, and I know people have to deal with things, but we spent all day yesterday -- Rob Murphy, Scott Ensell and myself -- spent all day yesterday dealing with a lot of things.

“And then today we got up and dealt with some other things. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get the information at some point. And when I get the information that the NCAA deems appropriate, then we'll go from there.”

Avent shared on the ESPN broadcast that his hope is that negative tests within the next 24 hours will give him a much larger pool of available players tomorrow than the 13 he had today. But as of Friday evening, there were still more questions than there were answers.

NC State will now face Vanderbilt Saturday at 2 p.m. in what will be a do-or-die semifinal contest. The winner will advance to the championship series, and the loser will be eliminated.

“It's about who is going to be on the roster, who is allowed to play,” Avent said. “That I haven't been told yet. Hopefully I'll get that information soon, and we'll go from there.

“Hopefully we'll have a lot of guys to pitch. Hopefully we'll have Reid Johnston, Sam Highfill, and a lot of guys to pitch. So we'll see.”

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