A disjointed first 28 minutes by the two-time defending state champion Weber Warriors, plus a goal by No. 16 American Fork, had the Cavemen leading 1-0.

Then, the No. 1 team did what No. 1 teams do.

After tying the game 1-1 in the first half, the Warriors scored three goals in a span of nine minutes to go ahead 4-1 in the second half and put No. 16 American Fork away to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinal round against No. 8 Mountain Ridge.

Trailing 1-0 in 32nd minute, Weber’s Blake Bybee had a long free-kick from 35 yards away on the right side. Instead of finding a teammate’s head, Bybee’s free-kick dipped into the top left corner of the goal to tie the game.

“I have lots of emotions about the first half,” said Weber coach Gavin Flitton. “I think I knew that was coming in the sense of, we have a target on our back and we know every team wants to come here and beat us and that’s how it is. So it took us a little bit to get going. I’m ok with that, I think we’ve got to learn from it.”

At halftime, Weber (14-2) changed a few things with substitutions and positioning of its forwards. Weber started pressuring AF on the ball more.

“We just have to keep going for those 50-50 balls, effort is what’s going to get it done for us,” senior Tyson Brown said.

The Warriors nearly went behind 2-1 in the 44th minute as the Cavemen had well-worked counterattacking, but Weber goalkeeper Stockton Short rushed out of the goal, made himself big and deflected a low shot out for a corner.

In the 46th minute, it was the Warriors who went ahead 2-1 on a soft header by Caleb Graves. About a minute later, Brown scored the first of his two goals on a breakaway from the left side and whatever pressure the Warriors were under had suddenly melted away.

Really, they’ve been under pressure all season, which is the territory that comes with being the holder of both region and state championship trophies from the previous year.

“I can’t give the boys enough credit for the way they’ve dealt with the pressure,” Flitton said.

Eight minutes later (the 55th minute), defender Nicholas Yorgason’s cross missed a Weber player in the box, but Brown was on the back side where he smoked a low shot into the right-side netting of the goal.

Short made another good save later to preserve the 4-1 lead, but the final 20 minutes of the game were otherwise procedural.

“We’ve got the players to do it, we know we can do it, we just gotta come out and fight like we did and get it done,” Brown said.

Tuesday’s comeback ensured Weber avoided an early-round upset, a fate that the 6A tournament’s No. 2 seed Corner Canyon met in a penalty shootout loss to No. 18 Herriman and a fate that No. 4 Syracuse also nearly met, but avoided with a PK shootout win over No. 13 Hunter.

A similar comeback happened in the Warriors’ regular-season finale two weeks ago at Fremont: got down 1-0, came back and won by multiple goals.

One thing that didn’t happen at Fremont two weeks ago was the presentation of the Region 1 championship trophy, which was instead presented to the Weber team Tuesday afternoon at home amid a backdrop of excited fans and a rather confused American Fork team.