NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent on COVID-19 vaccine: 'I don’t try to indoctrinate my kids'

COVID-19 vaccinations and rapid tests may determine whether Vanderbilt baseball faces a North Carolina State team that’s near full strength in Saturday’s College World Series bracket final.

The Commodores won 3-1 over N.C. State on Friday, which forced an elimination game Saturday with a championship series berth on the line.

The Wolfpack had only 13 players available Friday, including nine position players and four pitchers. Before the game, N.C. State announced "several players" had been placed in COVID-19 protocols.

The unique situation turned the postgame news conference into a discussion about COVID-19 vaccinations for N.C. State coach Elliott Avent, who tried to avoid the topic.

"I’m not going to talk about that," Avent said when asked if he was vaccinated. "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."

Of course, the bigger issue was whether N.C. State players were vaccinated since some apparently tested positive for COVID-19. Avent — who said possible positive tests were "personal" — added that it wasn’t his place to tell players to get vaccinated.

"My job is to teach them baseball, make sure they get an education and keep them on the right track forward," Avent said. "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."

Avent said he hopes to get back some of his players for Saturday’s game, especially pitchers, but he’s unsure if that will happen.

"I have no idea what’s going on. Zero," Avent said. "It just hasn’t been communicated. I’m sure I’ll get the information at some point that the NCAA deems appropriate and then we’ll go from there."

Since N.C. State players had to shift positions for a workable combination against Vanderbilt, only catcher Luca Tresh and right fielder Devonte Brown were in their regular positions.

Pitcher Sam Highfill, who shut down Vanderbilt in a 1-0 win Monday, played first base Friday. First baseman Austin Murr, a Gold Glove winner, moved to left field. And three freshman backups filled out the lineup.