The No. 17 OU baseball team has won games in almost every way you could think of, but everyone at L. Dale Mitchell Baseball Park on Saturday saw an unusual way for the Sooners to collect their 10th win of the young season.

With the score tied 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth, senior Ross Hubbard delivered with his judgment rather than his bat in a pinch-hit situation. Hubbard struck out on a slider in the dirt that trickled back to the mound, and South Florida’s pitcher picked the ball up and threw it into the right field corner allowing Hubbard to reach third.

Two pitches later sophomore Eric Ross, who was pinch running for Hubbard, scored on a passed ball that wound up being the game winning run to give OU (10-1) a 4-3 victory. The win extends the Sooners’ winning streak to five games, and was the Sooners’ third one-run victory this week.

“You don’t know how you’re going to win the game,” head coach Sunny Golloway said. “We’ll take it. You got to find a way to win.”

The Sooners and Bulls were locked in a pitching duel before the late-inning errors decided the game’s outcome. OU junior pitcher Bobby Shore and USF junior pitcher Andrew Barbosa competed pitch-for-pitch and kept the batters off balance all day.

“Bobby was terrific,” Golloway said. “Games are won or loss on the mound; it’s just that simple.

OU struck first with a sacrifice-fly by sophomore shortstop Caleb Bushyhead in the second inning, and the Bulls tied the game up in the top half of the sixth with a run of their on back-to-back one-out triples.

The Sooners responded with a pair of solo home runs in the sixth by sophomores centerfielder Chris Ellison and Garrett Buechele to take the momentary 3-1 lead.

Barbosa had held the red-hot Buechele hitless up until the home run, but as Buechele walked to the plate the Sooners felt he was due to strike big.

“I thought Garrett let [Barbosa] get ahead of him and let a couple fastballs go, and later on he started attacking more,” Golloway said. “That’s where he’s really good. He understands the game; he doesn’t get too high or too low, and he’s just a good baseball player.”

Buechele ended the day going 1-4 with the solo homer, extending his hit streak to seven games and his RBI streak to five games.

The two home runs in the sixth inning accounted for half of OU’s hits Saturday as the Sooners were held to a season-low four hits.

Shore could not hold the lead, though, as he gave up a two-run home run in the seventh inning. He was pulled after 6 2/3 innings while giving up the three runs on six hits and striking out seven batters.

Golloway opted to use junior pitcher Anthony Collazo to get the final out of the seventh inning before going to the combination of senior pitcher Jeremy Erben and junior pitcher Ryan Duke for the final two innings.

This combination worked like every other time Golloway has used it as the two pitchers combined for two shutout innings to secure the victory. Erben was credited with the win, his fourth of the season, and Duke raked in his fifth save this year.

The save raises Duke’s career save total to 21, inching closer to the career saves record of 28 saves set by Jeff Bajenaru between 1999 and 2000.

“He’s going to be our go-to guy,” Golloway said. “We have confidence in him. He knows his role and he knows he’s going to get the ball. I think it’s a pretty good situation for a young man to perform in, and he’s got a lot of ability and a lot of talent.”

The Sooners finish off the Sooner Classic against Stephen F. Austin at 3 p.m. Sunday in Norman. Golloway has not announced the official starting pitcher for Sunday’s game, but he hinted on Tuesday that freshman pitcher Ryan Gibson would make his weekend-rotation debut.

Gibson is 2-0 and has a 0.75 ERA in his two starts this season, and he performed well in his home debut Tuesday against the UT-Arlington Mavericks. Gibson earned the victory by allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits while striking out four batters.