NC State baseball players test positive for new, more contagious Delta variant of COVID
N.C. State’s removal from the College World Series over a COVID-19 cluster was a stunning and gut-wrenching way for the team’s magical season to end.
The Wolfpack did, though, follow NCAA rules and guidelines, N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan told The News & Observer in an interview Monday.
“We decided in September that the medical experts were going to be the ones that drove these decisions,” Corrigan said. “It’s something we’ve been living with this entire pandemic. We had eight positive student-athletes. Per the regulations that were laid out, that made this a no contest. It wasn’t something that was outside the rules.”
The Wolfpack was one win away from playing for a national championship. As N.C. State prepared to play Vanderbilt on Friday, four Wolfpack players tested positive for COVID-19.
The NCAA ruled only players who were vaccinated could play against Vanderbilt, which left N.C. State with 13 players. The Wolfpack chose to play with the diminished roster instead of forfeiting and lost 3-1 to the Commodores.
The teams were scheduled to play again Saturday at 2 p.m. But, because of the four positive cases, the NCAA tested N.C. State’s vaccinated and unvaccinated players Friday night.
Those tests revealed four more positive cases.
Between those cases and the number of unvaccinated athletes on N.C. State’s 27-player College World Series roster, the NCAA medical group’s guidelines ruled the Wolfpack out of the tournament. Vanderbilt was then advanced to the CWS finals.
“We understood,” NC State chancellor Randy Woodson said in a video the school distributed via social media. “We all know that when we have eight test results on a team of this size, that are all traveling together, living together, eating together, we know what the results are going to be.”
Woodson also said the cases involved the Delta variant of COVID-19, a new variant health officials say is more contagious than previous variants and is responsible for a high percentage of new cases. The N&O’s request to interview Woodson was declined on Monday; an NCSU official said Wednesday the Delta variant was confirmed for one of the positives.
With the Commodores and Mississippi State set to begin its best-of-three series to determine the national champion on Monday night in Omaha, Nebraska, the Wolfpack is home absorbing what feels like a national title opportunity robbed.
Corrigan understands the angst among Wolfpack fans, staff and the players and their families.
“Everything that’s going on right now is personal, it’s emotional with everything that goes into it,” Corrigan told the N&O. ”Let’s not lose sight of what an incredible year it was.”
COVID vaccinations at NC State
This season, N.C. State started ACC play 1-8 and had a March series with Duke canceled due to COVID-19 issues in the program. The Wolfpack found its groove as the season progressed to play their way to the ACC championship game, followed by regional and super regional wins that earned the school its first College World Series appearance since 2013.
Wins over Stanford and Vanderbilt put N.C. State into the national semifinals for the first time since 1968 and the second time in program history.
But along the way, not all of N.C. State’s players chose to get vaccinated against COVID-19. While NCAA protocols allowed players who had been fully vaccinated for two weeks or more and without symptoms to not be subject to regular COVID-19 tests, those who were unvaccinated were tested every other day.
In a statement released by N.C. State on Saturday, Corrigan said it was up to the players whether or not they got vaccinated.
“Vaccination for our students is a personal decision,” Corrigan wrote. “The university cannot require vaccines for our students, including our student athletes. Since vaccines were not available until after the start of the season, some of our players decided to wait until the completion of the season in case of side effects. We respect their rights to make personal healthcare decisions.”
Following a 1-0 win over Vanderbilt on June 21, N.C. State coach Elliott Avent said there was a “bug” going around his team and players needed to rest. Subsequent tests revealed players had COVID-19.
Anthony Holman, the NCAA’s managing director of championships and alliances, declined an interview request from The News & Observer. An NCAA spokesman instead referenced prior interviews Holman had with d1baseball.com and ESPN.com.
What happened to the Wolfpack at the CWS?
N.C. State had its first player test positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, after it had already won its first two games in the CWS, d1baseball.com reported. At this point, the Pack’s vaccinated players were still not subject to testing, per the NCAA’s COVID-19 protocols.
The Douglas County Health Department officials in Omaha met with NCAA officials “several weeks prior to the CWS to assure that they had procedures and protocols in place to mitigate COVID-19,” department spokesman Phil Rooney told The News & Observer on Monday.
Those protocols called for contract tracing and the NCAA medical team identified another player who had been considered in close contact with their first positive player. The NCAA did not use Avent’s comments about a “bug” after their win over Vanderbilt as a reason to begin probing the team, although there had been speculation that that had happened.
Rooney said the county health department was not involved in contact tracing as the NCAA contracted with a third-party vendor for case investigation and tracing.
The second player to test positive reportedly had several negative tests on consecutive days before testing positive on Friday prior to the Wolfpack’s rematch with Vanderbilt, according to D1baseball.com.
Reporting COVID-19 symptoms relies on the honor system. Two additional N.C. State players with symptoms were sent for testing Friday morning and those two players’ tests came back positive, according to ESPN.com, bringing the total number of COVID cases up to four. At that point, the NCAA made the decision to hold out all of N.C. State’s unvaccinated players from Friday’s game.
“So that has to go to the championships medical team and you’ve got to dissect that,” Holman told ESPN.com. “It’s not just the results, but the contact tracing, and all of this is happening in a very small window.”
Because the team had four active cases, NCAA medical protocols called for the entire team to be tested -- both vaccinated and unvaccinated players. Rooney said Holman, after consultation with the NCAA medical group, contacted county health officials.
“On Friday the NCAA requested additional testing capacity, which DCHD coordinated with the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory,” Rooney wrote in an email on Monday. “Specimen collection and PCR tests were performed that night on 33 individuals.”
So after the short-handed Wolfpack lost to Vanderbilt that day, the players were tested and awaited their results. Douglas County health officials had no direct contact with the NCAA medical group, Rooney said.
The results didn’t come until after midnight and, while the news was devastating to N.C. State in Saturday morning’s wee hours, Woodson and Corrigan said the Wolfpack knew they’d be out if enough more cases were found.
“We understand the results,” Woodson said. “There’s no questioning the results. We understand the gravity of eight players testing positive and the fact that this was the Delta variant, which is a variant that’s come from India that’s super contagious and is quickly emerging in the country as another wave of infections. So we understand that’s of concern.”
NCAA protocols stipulated that N.C. State’s team could not continue in the tournament. Douglas County health had no role in that decision.
“The department was not consulted regarding the NCAA’s decision,” Rooney said Monday.
With that, N.C. State arranged safe travel home for their players and staff. Those that returned Saturday night were greeted with a celebration at Doak Field to honor their season -- a magical season cut short.
This story was originally published June 28, 2021 at 7:10 PM with the headline "NC State baseball players test positive for new, more contagious Delta variant of COVID."