Bemidji State never saw it coming, as the 6-foot-2, 225-pound senior slugger stole second base in his final collegiate home baseball game at Corbett Field. The Minot State bench erupted with a standing ovation.

“Sean Arbaut, one of our ex-coaches, said he would buy the team pizza if I stole a base today,” Rodriquez explained. “We just had the right guy behind the plate, the right pitcher on the mound and I felt a little risky… The pitcher tipped off his move to the plate and we have been working on our steal starts. You never think the big, slow guy is going to use it. But, (the pitcher) gave me something I thought I could run on and the catcher didn’t have much of an arm either.”

Going through the handshake line after sweeping Bemidji State on Wednesday, 10-3 and 12-10, Rodriguez got to Arbaut at the end of the line. Arbaut confirmed the pizzas had been ordered and Rodriguez gave him a bear hug, lifting him off the turf.

Rodriguez, later in the second game of the doubleheader, was credited with a stolen base of home — his third career stolen base — which came off a double steal as Dillon Buckmeier forced a throw over to second base.

Alex Eisen/MDN MSU senior Darrel Doll makes contact with a pitch for a hit Wednesday in the second game of a doubleheader against Bemidji State at Corbett Field.

The Beavers stole an astonishing 24 bases across the doubleheader. That achievement gives them a season total of 151, which is one of the best marks in all of Division II and doubles up the 75 stolen bases MSU accumulated last season.

In the NSIC, the Beavers are up to 112 stolen bases, surpassing the previous conference single-season record of 101 set by Augustana last season.

“We can run a little bit,” MSU head coach Scott Eul said modestly. “Today was that perfect storm of pitchers not paying enough attention and our guys being ultra aggressive.”

Not many problems were had in Game 1, as the Beavers jumped out to an early lead and rolled to a 10-3 seven-inning victory. Trevaun Smith, Jackson Pokorney, Darrel Doll and Wyatt Schlosser collected multiple hits while Michael Borst and Tyler Wiltshire drove in multiple runs.

Jaymon Cervantes improved his record to 7-1 on the mound. He threw six innings, allowing three runs on eight hits.

MSU pulled away early in Game 2 as well, leading 7-2 through three innings.

In between one of the innings, the Beavers even broke out some line dancing in the dugout area. Everyone was relaxed and having a good time.

Then, the eighth inning came along. Bemidji State rallied with six runs to get within a run, 11-10.

“(Bemidji State) had some great at-bats there, not swinging at anything crazy and we were having a little trouble there finding the strike zone,” Rodriguez said. “That’s baseball.”

All the fun and dancing that was done to stay warm had devolved into a stressful situation.

“Yeah, I got a little scared there,” Eul said. “The bullpen didn’t throw as many strikes as they needed to. But, (Jack) Gamba came in at the end and shut it down for us. Good thing we put up enough runs early on.”

After relief pitcher Aaron Kern got out of the jam in the eighth with a fly out double play, closer Jack Gamba stepped in for the final three outs to earn his fifth save of the season.

Schlosser kept his hot bat going in the second game with a 4-for-5 performance that featured three RBIs, three stolen bases and two doubles. He has nine hits over the last four games.

The Beavers wrap up the regular season with a three-game road series against Minnesota Crookston this weekend. A single game will be played at 1 p.m. Friday with a doubleheader to follow on Saturday that will start noon.

MSU finishes the season with a 20-3 record at Corbett Field. Over the last two seasons, the Beavers are 29-4 at home.

Alex Eisen covers Minot State athletics, the Minot Minotauros and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @AEisen13.