diff --git a/solr/bin/solr b/solr/bin/solr
index e61808d080c4..509ca6c650ea 100755
--- a/solr/bin/solr
+++ b/solr/bin/solr
@@ -175,7 +175,7 @@ if [[ $? -ne 0 ]] ; then
   echo >&2 "${PATH}"
   exit 1
 else
-  JAVA_VER_NUM=$(echo "$JAVA_VER" | grep -v '_OPTIONS' | head -1 | awk -F '"' '/version/ {print $2}' | sed -e's/^1\.//' | sed -e's/[._-].*$//')
+  JAVA_VER_NUM=$(echo "$JAVA_VER" | grep -v '_OPTIONS' | awk -F '"' '/ version "/ {print $2; exit}' | sed -e's/^1\.//' | sed -e's/[._-].*$//')
   if (( JAVA_VER_NUM < JAVA_VER_REQ )) ; then
     echo >&2 "Your current version of Java is too old to run this version of Solr."
     echo >&2 "We found major version $JAVA_VER_NUM, using command '${JAVA} -version', with response:"