Peterborough United denied a 19-point regular-season gap to take a 4-0 first-leg lead over Sheffield on Wednesday in their League One play-off semi-final.
Jack Taylor’s opener put the hosts front and center before Joe Ward’s long-range second flew into the top corner after clipping Marvin Johnson.
Kwame Poku led Posh’s third shortly after the restart as Wednesday eyed a play-off loss for a second straight season.
Things got worse for the visitors late on when Jonson Clarke-Harris nodded in a fourth from close range.
The Owls had a number of good chances throughout the game, but a combination of good Will Norris goalkeeping, deadpan defense and poor finishing leaves Darren Moore’s side with a Herculean task in Thursday’s second leg if they are to make the final at Wembley later. this month.
The Owls tied on a four-game winning streak, having finished the regular season with 96 points – the highest tally ever by a team not to earn automatic promotion to the EFL.
Meanwhile, the hosts only made it into the top six thanks to Wednesday’s win over Derby, which saw them slip past a win over fourth-placed Barnsley under manager Darren Ferguson.
Wednesday should have been in front within seven minutes when Ollie Norburn was stripped by Michael Smith at the edge of the center circle, allowing the striker to carry on goal, but his low shot from the edge of the box was cleared away by Will Norris.
After surviving that error, it was two errors that led to Peterborough’s opener – Will Vaulks’ poor clearance from a cross fell on Taylor, whose powerful low shot from 15 yards went through Owls keeper Cameron Dawson when he should have saved him.
Wednesday nearly equalized three minutes later when Callum Paterson’s volley from a corner smashed into team-mate Windass as both teams tried to assert control over the draw.
It was the hosts who took control and it was a good spell with the ball that saw Ward unleash a powerful strike from 25 yards out, which sent Johnson off and dramatically into the top corner after clipping the underside of the rod.
Norris produced another fine save from Windass from the corner of the penalty area soon after, after seeing the striker get on the wrong side of his marker thanks to a pinpoint ball from Michael Ihiekwe.
And the Owls should have pulled a goal back four minutes after the restart when Barry Bannan’s wonderfully floating free-kick was deflected with a header at the far post by Ihiekwe.
But a minute later it looked like Wednesday’s hopes were over – Ephron Mason-Clark’s cross from the left found an unmarked Poku and his powerful header ended a fine counterattack.
Peterborough’s top mocker Clarke-Harris headed a free-kick just over the bar shortly after as Posh took control, but with 20 minutes left the Owls thought they had a way to go back.
Johnson’s first shot hit Ronnie Edwards’ arm on the line but the referee didn’t see it – a decision you think would have been overturned had there been a VAR at the Weston Homes stadium – before two efforts from Ihiekwe were cleared from the line.
Any hopes Wednesday had of making it to Wembley were all but extinguished with nine minutes to go – Dawson acrobatically pushed a Taylor shot from close range onto the post but the first goal scorer did well to recover and clip a cross to Clarke-Harris, who nodded just yards from the far post.
It could have been 5-0 had Dawson not saved Poku well from inside the box in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
