Osceola senior Keith Weisenberg has pitched in plenty of big games throughout his Warriors career, enough to have warranted a scholarship offer from Stanford in his sophomore season and have scads of MLB scouts attend most of his starts the past two seasons.

But the senior admitted he was a little bit nervous before taking the mound against St. Pete on Friday night, since it was his final regular season home game and a berth in the PCAC title game was on the line.

But despite “not having his best stuff”, according to his head coach, the hard-throwing righty managed to notch a complete game victory on Senior Night, striking out 14 Green Devil batters while scattering 8 hits in a 5-3 Osceola win.

“This was probably the most nervous I was all season,” Weisenberg admitted afterwards. “I know a lot of kids on St. Pete and I knew how big this game was for us.”

“At the beginning of the game I didn’t feel my best, but I paced myself so I could finish strong.”

The beginning of the game did start off shaky for Weisenberg and Osceola (17-4), thanks to a freak play that erased a 2-0 Warriors lead.

After scoring a pair of runs in the first inning off St. Pete starter David Sockol, Weisenberg (7IP, 8H, 3R, 0BB, 14K, 113P) allowed a one-out single in the top of the second to Matt Mainelli, who was then erased on a fielder’s choice by Sam Goodis.

With a one-ball, two-strike count on Chris Colonel, Weisenberg appeared to strike out the Green Devils first baseman, but Osceola catcher Mike Kleinmann dropped the ball.

Although the home plate umpire ruled the batter automatically out with first base occupied, St. Pete head coach Travis Phelps argued the catcher had to either throw down to first base or tag the batter because there were two outs in the inning.

“The catcher dropped the ball, and with two outs, they’re free to run,” Phelps explained. “It’s not a guaranteed out in that situation. They have to throw him out or tag him.”

The umps agreed with Phelps, and with two runners on base, a frustrated Weisenberg then surrendered three consecutive singles, allowing the Green Devils to tie the game at two.

“I should have told Mike to tag him, Mike probably should’ve tagged him,” Weisenberg said. “I was definitely upset about it, but it’s part of the game.”

Turns out it didn’t really matter, as Osceola came right back to score three runs in the bottom of the frame, thanks to a couple of errors by St. Pete and an RBI single by Jaret Helinger, and that was all Weisenberg needed to secure the win.

“We knew it was gonna be tough coming in facing Weisenberg,” Phelps said. “We knew we had to play tough defense, and we didn’t do that in the second inning and it cost us.”