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A pair of pitchers continued to provide some much-needed leadership to a young Humboldt Eagles American Legion baseball team over the weekend.

The Eagles traveled to Petaluma for a doubleheader against the Leghorns Academy on Saturday and dropped both games by scores of 8-4 and 5-4.

It was always going to be a tough challenge in the heat for the local club, which traveled with just nine players to match up with a Petaluma team that had 27 players on its roster.

However, Eureka’s Cooper Ohlsen and St. Bernard’s Mateo Gutierrez both continued to help set the tone for their younger teammates with big performances on the mound.

“Our pitchers did a great job keeping us in both games,” Eagles head coach Tommy Gale said. “Both are leaders for us who we always have confidence will give us a chance to win, and they did just that.”

Unfortunately for the Eagles, they were unable to get the key hit when they needed it.

“We really were just missing those clutch hits to bring runners in,” said Gale, whose team led early in both games.

Gutierrez had the Eagles’ only hit in game one, while Ryder Mitchell led the way in game two and finished 2-for-4 with a double.

Rylan Lommori and Ohlsen each also had a double in game two.

“Although we struggled to get a ton of hits throughout the two games, we competed in the box to fight for walks that ended up producing most of our runs,” Gale said. “Balls hit hard tended to go at fielders and that’s just part of the game sometimes.”

The patient Eagles had 13 walks on the day.

“I’m proud of our guys for showing up and grinding the way they did throughout the day,” Gale added. “We had nine players and Petaluma had 27, so we knew we were in for it battling through the heat and doing our best to stay as fresh as we could.”

The Eagles will have a break in action this week before playing the Northern Humboldt Giants next Monday at 5 p.m.