— Vanderbilt’s baseball team was slumbering at the downtown DoubleTree Hotel when coach Tim Corbin awoke at 1:30 Saturday morning and noticed he had a text message.
The NCAA had just declared Saturday’s game against NC State, which was supposed to be played in 12 hours, a no contest because of COVID-19 protocols.
“I felt like when the boys woke up, I wanted to give them some type of information,” Corbin said Sunday, in his first Zoom call with media since the NCAA decision.
“I’m sure it was a little bit confusing, but we used yesterday as a day to talk through it, and I told them that once we get to the ballpark today, we move forward.
Corbin was still dealing with it a day and a half later.
While Mississippi State celebrated its walk-off win over Texas on Saturday to advance to the best-of-three championship series that begins Monday , Vanderbilt players spent the day together waiting in a quiet, uncomfortable space.
Anthony Holman, the NCAA’s managing director of championships and alliances, told ESPN on Sunday it has happened seven times before.
“I think the framing of it is really important,” Holman said.
Holman said the NCAA has held 284 postseason events and 65 championships involving more than 2,700 teams since February, with more than 130,000 tests administered.
Holman said he wasn’t sure if NC State was the furthest a team had ever gotten in a tournament before having its season abruptly end because of positive tests, or what the NCAA calls being “not cleared” after testing.
The night before, in the team’s postgame news conference, NC State coach Elliott Avent said his team welcomed the rest that came with advancing in the winners bracket.
The NCAA championships medical team started contract tracing and identified a teammate as a close contact, quarantined him and started daily PCR testing on him.
And NC State reported that two other players were showing symptoms. They were administered antigen tests, which came back positive.
“Now, you’ve got multiple cases with one team,” Holman said.
NC State was at the stadium while the medical team was deciding what to do.
While the six-member medical team was awaiting results, it consulted with the Douglas County Health Department over various scenarios.
About 30 minutes later, a group of NC State players gathered at TD Ameritrade Field and posed for pictures near home plate in front of the CWS logo.
“For us, we get to move forward,” Corbin said.
Leiter, who joins teammate Kumar Rocker as the nation’s strikeout leaders, threw 123 pitches a week ago in Vanderbilt’s 1-0 loss to NC State.
In a normal year, the Commodores would have celebrated making the finals by running around the field or dog-piling on the mound.
“We’re just playing baseball,” Corbin said.