OMAHA, Neb. – When Marty McFly went back to 1955 in Doc’s Brown’s DeLorean had he been able to spend his time in Omaha instead of Hill Valley he could have learned the answer to what has become one of the college baseball’s longest running trivia questions – he would know that Wake Forest was the last Atlantic Coast Conference team to win the College World Series.

It seems incredible that no ACC team has left Omaha with the championship trophy in six decades. Clemson has been to the CWS a dozen times without being the final team standing. Florida State has left Nebraska 10 times without the title – 21 times if you count their appearances in other conferences. Even North Carolina, who has been to the CWS 10 times, including the 2009 club which had future MLB players Dustin Ackley, Kyle Seager, Matt Harvey, Adam Warren and Alex White on the roster, failed to be the team the dog-piled after the last out.

If Virginia is going to end the ACC drought they’re going to have their work cut out for them because if Monday night's game was any indication, stopping Vanderbilt from claiming a second straight title will be an arduous task. Vanderbilt continued their perfect play in Omaha with a win built on quality pitching, timely hitting and fundamental baseball.

The Cavs looked to be up to the challenge early. The starting duo of Virginia’s Connor Jones and Vandy’s Carson Fulmer began the game with a classic pitchers’ duel. Each continually put down batters and strung a line of zeroes across the scoreboard. Hits were hard to come by and scoring opportunities were even more scarce.

Vanderbilt was finally able to get in on the scoreboard following what would be the the big hit of the night from Will Toffey.

In the bottom of the sixth the freshman stepped up to the plate of the scoreless game with two outs and two men on. Until that point Jones had nearly matched Fulmer. But Jones’ 99th pitch of the night flattened out and Toffey was able to go the opposite way and dumped it over the left fielder’s head for a stand-up double. The knock scored Bryan Reynolds and Zander Wiel who had reached on a walk and single respectively and were able to get good jumps off their bases.

“It was just a pitch and a place,” Toffey said later, when asked about his hit. “It just happened that way. It was just an elevated fastball that was out over the plate and up, and I did my best to shoot it that way, and that's all.”

The hit by Toffey was almost as incredible as the path that brought him to Vanderbilt.

Toffey was an accomplished prep baseball player and was a core member of a team that went 76-1 during his three years playing at Salisbury School in Barnstable, Massachusetts. He was named the New England Prep Baseball Player of the Year in both 2013 and 2014 and had caught the eye of a number of MLB teams, including the New York Yankees who selected him in the 23rd round of the 2014 amateur draft.

However the call of playing in the MLB wasn’t the only competition Vanderbilt Head Coach Tim Corbin had to face in order to get him on campus. In addition to being a top baseball player, Toffey was also a skilled hockey player. His team won the New England Prep School championships in 2013 and 2014 and he was the captain and the leading scorer as a defenseman.

Corbin, a Wolfeboro, New Hampshire native, attended one of Toffey’s hockey tournament games during Christmas break when Toffey’s team played Corbin’s own alma mater Kimble Union. Corbin wanted to see Toffey compete on ice and estimated that there were at least 30 NHL executives also in attendance at the rink watching Toffey and his top ranked teammates. Recruiting Toffey to put down the stick in exchange for a bat was not going to be easy.

Toffey’s older brother John had also excelled both on the ice and on the diamond and played both in college. Will went to him to for advise on what direction he should pursue. John ultimately recommended that Will pick one sport and give it his all; from his own experience playing two sports was simply too time demanding. Will loved both, but ultimately chose baseball - perhaps partly because his and John’s father has been a pitcher in the Pittsburg Pirates organization.

Toffey brought his hockey toughness, confidence and swagger to Nashville and fit in with the Vanderbilt team. He made the starting lineup as a freshman and has been proving he made the right decision ever since. He was named to the Freshman All-SEC Team after leading the ‘Dores with a .348 average during SEC play and had a 28-game hitting streak. He was also named to the SEC All Tournament Team.

Vanderbilt’s Dansby Swanson heaped praise on his teammate Toffey after the game.

“Toff's been great for us all year long,” Swanson touted. “At this point in in the season you can't really consider him a freshman anymore because of all the experience he's had in the fall, going to the Dominican, and then this whole season. He's got close to 100 games under his belt now, and we trust him in all types of situations whether it's defensively or offensively. When we saw him come up there we knew he would come through.”

Coach Corbin echoed Swanson’s sentiment.

“Dansby mentioned the Dominican and we did have him hitting up in the order all the way back to the fall, so we knew he was a mature hitter,” the top ‘Dore skipper stated. “What you saw there is his ability to go back and forth on both foul lines, for a young kid is a special skill. He's got good hands, he's got good eyesight. He contains himself well at the plate and a very competitive kid.”

Once the lead was established it was up to the Vanderbilt pitching staff to make sure the ‘Dores walked away with the win.

Fulmer pitched as masterfully as anticipated in his last collegiate start. The Vanderbilt ace capped the season in which he won SEC Pitcher of the Year, first team All-SEC and Defensive All-SEC with one of his most dominating outings of the year and looked every bit worthy of being the eighth overall selection in the MLB draft.

The only hit Fulmer allowed through the first seven innings was an infield single. At one point he had retired ten straight and appeared to on his way to a complete game before he ran into some trouble late in the bottom of the eighth. He was one a strike away from finishing the inning before he gave up a double and a walk. His roommate, Ben Bowden was able to come in and induce a fly ball to get the third out.

It was a bittersweet finish for Fulmer, who didn’t to leave the game, but knew it was time to hand the ball over.

“When I see Coach walking out, I know that's it,” Fulmer stated after the game. “And you have to put all frustration aside. And what made it big for me was not only did I have Coach there but I had the whole infield. And I consider those guys my best friends, and along with the other guys on my team. And for me being able to spend that moment with them and just look back on the brotherhood that we created, and I'm on top of it with a win at the end of the game.

“So it's definitely a moment I'll remember for the rest of my life, and I couldn't have asked for it to happen any better.”

Fulmer finished the year as just the fourth pitcher in SEC history, and first since Tennessee’s Luke Hochevar in 2005, to win the pitching triple crown as he will finish tops in the league in wins (14), ERA (1.83) and strikeouts (167).

In the seventh inning Ro Coleman, Dansby Swanson and Bryan Reynolds each added RBI hits to increase the lead to 5-0. The extra runs gave the Vanderbilt pitching staff some extra breathing room that allowed them to settle in and close the game.

Virginia was one the verge of a rally in the ninth inning, but couldn’t plate the necessary runs to even up the score. A pinch hit single by Jack Gerstenmaier scored Kenny Towns and a Joe McCarthy walk put two potential runs on base, but closer Kyle Wright was able to finish the inning without allowing any more damage.

Afterwards, Virginia Head Coach Brian O’Connor spoke highly of both clubs and made a point that the series isn’t over yet.

“That was certainly a great ballgame there,” O’Connor stated. “For the first six innings certainly a pitchers' duel – Connor and Carson really were buckling down and making a lot of big pitches. I was really proud there of Connor, and I thought he really battled and gave it his best out there and gave us a chance. But from their standpoint, Carson Fulmer certainly was tremendous. He pitched the bottom of the zone, did a nice job of changing speeds when we did get a chance to get a few guys on, just didn't allow us to get that big hit and certainly he's worthy of all the accolades that he's received and he's a tremendous competitor.

“We've been in this situation before this year. Certainly we were in this situation going into Saturday against Florida, that if you win, you get to continue your season on, if you don't, it's over. So this team has handled that kind of adversity all year long, and I would imagine tomorrow night would be no different.”