WELLS — It’s been a long time since the Wells boys soccer team last won a playoff game ”“ so long, in fact, that nobody seems to quite be able to remember exactly when it was.

Before Saturday, that is. Now the trivia question will be a lot easier to answer.

Trailing Poland 1-0 at halftime, Wells got goals from Alec Pinette, Liam Bell and TJ Wright during a dominant second-half performance as the seventh-seeded Warriors rallied to beat the 10th-seeded Knights 3-1 in a Western Class B preliminary round game in front of a large and loud crowd at Forbes Field.

Wells (7-6-2) advances to play No. 2 Greely (9-3-2) in a quarterfinal at 6 p.m. Tuesday, while Poland finished the year 4-10-1.

The seven wins alone mark a major accomplishment for the Wells program, matching the number of wins in the last seven years combined, fourth year head coach Sean Bishop said. The playoff game was the Warrior’s first since 2003, with the last playoff victory coming an estimated two decades ago.

“It’s been quite a while. This is my fourth year as the Wells coach, and when I started, the seniors that year had never won a game,” Bishop said. “So this is a very gratifying win.”

Poland had won the regular season meeting between the two teams 2-0, and took a 1-0 lead 15:41 in Saturday, when a Wells defender slipped defending a throw in. That gifted the ball to the Knight’s Tom Flint, and he made no mistake from eight yards out, smashing his shot off the under-side of the crossbar and in.

“That was really their first opportunity and they put it in,” Bishop said. “That happens to us sometimes and we had to bounce back from it.”

Poland nearly made it 2-0 seven minutes later when a corner kick bounced out to defender Cody Kostro just outside the box, with his side-footed shot dipping and clanging off the cross bar before the Warriors cleared it from danger.

That, however, would be the Knight’s last solid goal-scoring opportunity of the game as Wells keeper Chandler Bridge’s goal wasn’t seriously threatened for the final 55 minutes.

“Sometimes we go into a shell when we give up a goal,” Bishop said. “It’s a habit we’re getting out of and they did a nice job today.”

“We were nervous because this was our first playoff game in a while,” Bell said. “We just had to settle down.”

Wells controlled play for the final 15 minutes of the half, with Hunter McDonnell and Tyler Whitten both sending open headers just over the bar from close range while several other chances went begging due to a combination of poor decision making by the Warriors and strong defending by the Knights center-back pairing of Kostro and Adam Moody.

“We needed patience and to try to find the right opportunities,” Bishop said. “There were a couple times where we didn’t have good shot selection and were trying to force things from either too far out or a bad angle. We just talked about making that adjustment to a patient approach (at halftime).”

That approach started to pay dividends as Pinette scored 6:36 after the break, when a corner driven into the box was headed towards goal by Dan Quint. Bell got on to the end of it for a shot that was stopped by Knights goalie Zach Lowe (seven saves), but Lowe could do nothing about the rebound as Pinette knocked the ball home from close range.

“It bounced off the keeper and I just knew I had to keep moving around and get in a good spot,” Pinette said. “I had my opportunity and took advantage of it.”

The goal galvanized the Warriors, with another nice save by Lowe robbing McDonnell before an open Bell blasted a shot over from 10 yards out soon after.

Bell didn’t let his next good chance go, though, as he gave the Warriors their first lead with 13:40 to play, again on a corner that Charlie Durfee lofted into the box. Somehow, Wells’ leading scorer found himself unmarked from six yards out right in the middle of the goal, rising high and powering in a header.

“I saw the ball was going to go further than the defenders thought,” said Bell, a freshman. “I just adjusted myself to the backside of the box and was open.”

Wright then capped the rally and sewed things up with 3:20 to play on a beautifully struck left-footed shot from 25 yards out. With a loose ball bouncing towards him from right to left, the right-footed Wright decided to swing his left foot through the ball, looping it into the high right corner for his second goal of the season to finish the scoring.

“That goal was all poise,” Bishop said. “He’s a right-footed player, and that was a great finish, probably the best goal I’ve seen all year.”

Wells will now face a tough test against perennial contender Greely, the defending Class B state champions. The teams didn’t meet during the regular season, and Bishop nodded in agreement when asked if the Rangers would be the best team the Warriors have taken on so far this fall.

But win or lose Tuesday, the Warriors know they’ve already accomplished plenty for a program whose dark days aren’t so far in the rear window.

“In the past we’ve been having two or three win seasons, so it’s great to earn some respect,” Pinette said. “People think they’re going to come here and just blow out Wells again, and now they’ve got something to watch out for.”

—Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or cdunbar@journaltribune.com.