After losing the first Steel City derby of the season in the Championship, the Owls restored a small amount of pride for the blue and white half of the city as their reserves beat the Blades 2-1 at Hillsborough on Tuesday evening.
United fielded four trialists in the shape of Elliot Omozusi, Facundo Zampa, Henri Camara and Fabrice Pancrate along with first-team squad players, whilst Wednesday included Etienne Esajas, Leon Clarke, Akpo Sodje and Francis Jeffers.
Glen Little headed home a Kyel Reid cross to give the Blades the lead at the interval, but the Owls rallied after the break with Sodje and Jeffers on target in front of the onlooking Kevin Blackwell.
In a quiet opening ten minutes, the home side had the only real effort on goal. United didn't clear a corner from the left and after Miller had headed the ball back into the box Bennett saved comfortably despite Clarke's acrobatics.
Trialists Pancrate and Camara both had efforts on goal in the 15th minute, before Clarke's saw his curling effort go well wide of the far post.
After Esajas had seen a long-range free-kick comfortably saved, Pancrate headed over from a Little corner, then a slick move involving Omozusi, Little and Zampa ended in the Argentinean midfielder shooting over.
The visitors, who had started to look threatening going forward, took the lead in the 36th minute.
Stewart fed the ball to Reid on the left, he beat Simek and sent a deep cross into the back post where LITTLE headed home on the angle past O'Donnell.
Wednesday came out of the traps quickly in the second-half and Omozusi had to be alert to halt a burst from Jeffers, before two goals in two minutes totally changed the game.
Clarke freed SODJE, who powered past Fortune to capitalise on some indecision between Stewart and Bennett to level things up.
Moments later JEFFERS linked up with Clarke before slotting the ball into the bottom corner.
Former Wigan striker Camara continued to look dangerous and fired a powerful angled shot just wide with O'Donnell beaten.
Little's free-kick from the left hit the head of Wood, but O'Donnell was down quickly to turn the ball away.
United continued to push for an equaliser and in the 88th minute had a perfect opportunity.
Pancrate headed the ball into the path of Camara, who was then brought down by a rash tackle from Wood leaving the referee with an easy task of pointing to the spot.
Reid stepped up from twelve yards but his penalty was smartly saved by O'Donnell as the Owls hung on.
United's assistant boss Sam Ellis was frank in his assessment of the performance and admits more could have been gained from the game:
"We played well in the first-half, but after that our play wasn't as effective or as positive as we would have liked it to have been."
Owls: O'Donnell, Simek, Wilde, Miller (Harrison 63), Wood, Wragg, Jeffers, McAllister, Clarke (Modest 72), Sodje, Esajas (Palmer H/T).
Unused: Jameson, Tunnard.
Blades: Bennett, Omozusi, Stewart, James, Fortune, Maguire, Little, Zampa (Pennycooke-Morgan 70), Camara, Pancrate, Reid.
Unused: Billard, Foster, Pomares, Darlow.
