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Polk County has developed a penchant for second-half surges, and head coach George Alley is fine with that.

Not that he wouldn’t mind some opening-half fireworks as well.

The Wolverines’ latest display of late life came Monday, as Polk scored three goals in the final 11 minutes to hand East Rutherford a 4-1 setback in a home Mountain Foothills 7 Conference battle.

Polk (12-4-3, 7-3-1) sewed up third place in the MF7 regular-season standings with the win. The Wolverines end the season Wednesday at home against Hendersonville before opening 1A state playoff competition on Saturday.

Four different players scored for the Wolverines, capping a final 40 minutes in which Polk had numerous scoring opportunities before finally finding the net – and then doing so twice more.

“We’ve got a couple of 10, 11-goal scorers, and then six, eight,” Alley said. “I think that’s what makes us difficult to defend. And what we’re also seeing now is that we use a lot of reserves and we’re wearing people out.

“And so we’re kind of taking it to them in the second half. I still would like to get a goal earlier in the first half, but I like our resilience in the second half.”

East Rutherford (7-13-1, 3-8-1) did not make it an easy night for the Wolverines. The Cavaliers grabbed a 1-0 advantage in the 17th minute and kept it until Polk defender Mason Hudson came forward and drilled a shot off the left wing in the 35th minute, evening the match at the half.

Polk continued to produce chances in the second half. Junior Cooper Meyer returned to the pitch after being sideline by an injury for the past few games and played a key role in those threats, his cross to Thomas Varnadore in the 43rd minute nearly producing a goal and he himself just missing an opportunity in the 45th minute.

The Wolverines continued to threaten as the half progressed. A Hudson header off a corner kick just sailed over the crossbar. A James Purtill header off another corner was saved at the last second.

The breakthrough finally came in the 70th minute. Hudson deflected a Cavalier pass to Varnadore, who slipped a pass forward to Meyer. With a defender at his back, Meyer still drove nearly to the six-yard box before rolling a shot past East Rutherford keeper Chris Aguilar-Diaz and inside the right post, giving the Wolverines a 2-1 edge.

Polk scored again 90 seconds later. Toomy Jackson fought to gain possession off a throw-in deep in the Cavaliers’ end of the field, eventually getting control just off the end line. Jackson dribbled back in front of the net and split two East defenders with a hard drive that also found the right side of the net, giving the Wolverines a 3-1 lead.

A similar bit of hustle brought Polk’s final goal. Manny Abraham snared a ball that appeared to be rolling over the end line and flicked a perfect cross toward the back post to Brinson Ashworth, who tapped in the Wolverines’ final score with 2:10 remaining.

“Getting Cooper back, maybe he needs to sit down for two weeks at a time because he was shot out of a cannon,” Alley said. “It was nice to see the balance of scoring, too.

“Defense continues to just keep locking them down. We didn’t give them many opportunities.”