GARDINER — Seven weeks ago on this field, the Wells football team suffered a tough loss as it failed to hold off a late Gardiner rally.

Gardiner was again threatening in a playoff rematch Friday, but this time the Warriors made the plays they needed to come out on the right side of a tight game.

A pair of late defensive stands enabled Wells to hang on for a 14-12 win over Gardiner in a Class C quarterfinal at Hoch Field. The win sends the fifth-seeded Warriors to the semifinals against top-seeded Greely (9-0).

“We’ve got injured kids, they’ve got injured kids — it’s that time of year, and it was a gutsy effort on our part and on theirs, too,” said Wells coach Tim Roche. “It was a hard-fought game; I knew if we just hung in there, we’d be all right, and we hung in there.”

HOW IT HAPPENED

Both defenses were strong in the first quarter, as neither offense got inside the opposing team’s 30-yard line. Yet Gardiner’s offense found somewhat of a rhythm in the second quarter, and with 3:32 left in the half, Justin Doody scored on a 4-yard run to give the No. 4 Tigers (6-3) a 6-0 lead.

Wells (6-3) responded with a drive to the Gardiner 14 with 1.6 seconds left on the clock. After a delay of game penalty pushed the ball back to the 19, Noah McDonough hit Nathan DeMauro for a touchdown pass as time expired to give the Warriors a 7-6 halftime lead.

“We knew we were getting the ball back in the second half, so that was enormous and gave us momentum,” Roche said. “It was a great ball, and it was a great catch; he did a great job getting his feet down. It put us on the board, and that was awesome.”

Wells received the second-half kickoff and stretched its lead to 14-6 with 6:53 to go in the third quarter on a 6-yard run by Colin Moody. Just 43 seconds later, though, Doody answered for the Tigers with his second touchdown of the night, a 34-yard sprint down the left sideline.

Gardiner had a chance to pull ahead midway through the fourth quarter, but after a holding call on third-and-2 from the 9, a sack pushed the Tigers out of field-goal range.

Then, with the Tigers facing third-and-7 from the Wells 25 with 1:30 left, a Robert Bates strip-sack was recovered by Liam Perkins, sealing the win.

ANOTHER WELLS-GARDINER NAILBITER

In two matchups this season, Wells and Gardiner were about as even as can be. This was the second two-point game, after the Tigers came back from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter to defeat the Warriors 28-26 in overtime.

The difference, Roche said, was Wells making both extra points and stopping Doody on a 2-point conversion attempt that would’ve tied the game at 14 after Gardiner botched its first extra point. Wells senior running back Kevin Bolduc noted that the two teams also play similar styles.

“These two games have been pretty tough,” said Bolduc, who rushed for 112 yards. “They’re a physical team, like we are, and they’re not the biggest team, but neither are we. It’s just physical; it was a dogfight out there.”

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

• “We came in here without our top tackler (Owen Chadwick, thumb surgery), Justin Doody was playing with a broken wrist, and we’ve been missing Peter Dube since our first Wells game when he tore his ACL … We’ve kind of been scraping by, so I’m proud of the effort the guys gave.” — Gardiner coach Pat Munzing

• “It’s all about my line up front. I couldn’t have done it without those guys and my other running backs, who were getting it done and blocking for me. It was just a team effort for us.” — Kevin Bolduc

STAT LEADERS

• Wells: Kevin Bolduc (20 carries, 112 yards), Noah McDonough (3 of 10 passing, 50 yards, TD), Colin Moody (two carries, 36 yards, TD, one reception, 23 yards) 

• Gardiner: Isaac Madore (10 of 13 passing, 125 yards), Justin Doody (12 carries, 73 yards, 2 TDs), Chase McGrane (four receptions, 47 yards)