ST. NICHOLAS — The Mid Peninsula football team earned its first victory of the season, and the first since 2012, in a 50-32 contest against the South Shore Cardinals Sept. 17.

“We’ve been seeing improvement from the entire team from week to week, and we are really happy with the progress we’ve been making,” Wolverines coach Sam Eggleston said. “Being a first-year team, there is a constant stream of little things we know we need to fix, but the overall team performance has been better than we could have honestly hoped.”

Ahead by just one possession at the half, 28-20, Mid Pen extended and sealed the game in the half.

“Our offensive and defensive lines should really get all the credit for this one,” Eggleston said. “They gave us time to throw, opened up lanes to run, climbed to second-level blocks whenever they could and really were the driving force to every offensive drive we had. Defensively, they closed down the center of the line with such force that South Shore couldn’t find much running room behind their line.”

Two red zone attacks, a five-yard run from Tristin Syers — and a two-point success thanks to Bradly VanDamme on the ground — and a one-yard punch in from Caleb Lofquist, along with another conversion, and one 24-yard run from VanDamme put the dagger in the Cardinals in the second half.

In the first half, VanDamme scampered three yards and passed to Michael Englund for 30 yards for two touchdowns, and Englund added another to close the half on a 12-yard jet sweep.

VanDamme notched 224 yards on the ground on 28 carries and 145 yards through the air while going 13-for-26. Syers finished with 16 carries for 164 yards, and Englund collected 39 yards on six carries. Englund also finished with 107 yards on seven receptions.

“Bradly is every bit the quarterback offensive coordinator Kyle Frusti and I hoped he would be,” Eggleston said. “He’s been pushing himself to learn our offensive concepts, and the work is paying off. Today, we saw him stepping up into the pocket and making solid throws as well as great scramble decisions when he had to run.

“We’re convinced there isn’t much athletically that Michael Englund can’t do. He’s fast, he’s focused, he’s fairly strong, plus he’s competitive as hell. We’re fortunate he joined the team this year.”

Defensively, Syers led the Wolverines with eight tackles and six assists, a sack and an interception. Zach McNally collected six tackles and five assists with two forced fumbles and a recovery. Karter Koth had five tackles and assists, a sack and a forced fumble. Trey Micheau finished with six tackles, one sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.

“Defensively, Karter Koth has been having the game of his life every week as he keeps improving,” Eggleston said. “Take him and switch him to offense, and he is also playing the best football we’ve seen from him. We expect that to continue.

“Tristin Syers has been playing like a madman for us. Defensively, he has led us every week in tackles, been making tackles for losses, picking up sacks and now, even an interception. Offensively, he was moved into the backfield as a running back for us, and he has just started producing yards right away. Eclipsing 100 yards rushing in this one was a goal of his, and he wasn’t about to rest until he reached it.”

Eggleston also highlighted Frusti’s, a Superior Central alumni, contributions.

“He played for me at Superior Central and went on to play a season at St. Norbert before transferring to NMU this year,” Eggleston said. “I was more than fortunate to get him onboard.

“Winning this game was huge for us — not only as a team of coaches and players but as a school and as the surrounding community. We have had multitudes of support from every corner of the district, and we were so happy to be able to get this win for Mid Pen and all our supporters.”

Mid Pen hosts Onekama Saturday.

“They will be a tough opponent,” Eggleston said. “One thing we can’t afford to do is believe this is as high as we have to need to go in order to keep winning. We are still trying to instill the realization that playing football means we never really stop trying to improve and increase our football IQ.”