In fact it was 33 minutes before Yeovil created any danger when Andy Lindegaard and Arron Davies combined to put pressure on a defence that had conceded four goals in each of their last two meetings with Town.
Previously Scunthorpe's Cleveland Taylor had a good 20-yarder tipped over by Chris Weale, and the Iron certainly had the better of a goalless first half.
The decisive goal came after 57 minutes. A corner on the right from Ian Baraclough found its way through a crowd of players and Billy Sharp bundled the ball over the line.
Yeovil keeper Weale suffered a recurrence of a knee injury and had to be stretchered off, being replaced by Stephen Collis.
The goal stung Yeovil and they produced more attacking ideas in the last 30 minutes than they had in the previous 60.
They were out of luck in the 61st minute when defender Adam Lockwood headed against the post via keeper Tom Evans, and Evans recovered well to save Chris Cohen's follow-up shot.
It was 76 minutes before Yeovil's first corner which gave some indication of the way things had gone, but in that frantic finale skipper Terry Skiverton went close to rescuing a point with a header which the keeper saved.