diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/DisjunctionScorer.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/DisjunctionScorer.java
index 4a0442c5ceb..09bcdd4f0e6 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/DisjunctionScorer.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/DisjunctionScorer.java
@@ -152,13 +152,16 @@ abstract class DisjunctionScorer extends Scorer {
               previous = w;
             }
           }
-
-          // We need to explicitely set the list of top scorers to avoid the
-          // laziness of DisjunctionScorer.score() that would take all scorers
-          // positioned on the same doc as the top of the pq, including
-          // non-matching scorers
-          DisjunctionScorer.this.topScorers = topScorers;
+        } else {
+          // since we don't need scores, let's pretend we have a single match
+          topScorers.next = null;
         }
+
+        // We need to explicitely set the list of top scorers to avoid the
+        // laziness of DisjunctionScorer.score() that would take all scorers
+        // positioned on the same doc as the top of the pq, including
+        // non-matching scorers
+        DisjunctionScorer.this.topScorers = topScorers;
         return true;
       }
     };