Van-Far had good moments on Friday but not enough to win.

The Indians lost 28-14 at Eastern Missouri Conference foe Montgomery County despite leading 14-12 at halftime.

Class 1 No. 7 Van-Far (3-2, 2-1 EMO) scored with one second left in the first half before converting on the two-point attempt and couldn’t score after that despite finishing with four takeaways and having other shining plays like Gibson Condie recovering an onside kick and Easton Sharp blocking a punt.

“We had a lot of good things happen,” head coach Lucas Gibson said. “We just didn’t capitalize on them.”

Van-Far came away with interceptions thanks to Kasen Christian and Kashton Rhoades, and Evan Utterback recovered a fumble.

Gibson said the offense didn’t move the ball as well as it could. Utterback ran for 66 yards on six carries, and Kasen Christian completed 11-for-16 passes for 108 yards. Van-Far ran for 93 yards.

Gibson said he liked how the defense performed against the big-play potential of Montgomery County (3-2, 1-1 EMO). The Indians went into this game averaging 16.5 points allowed, which is better than the 22-point average two years ago, and kept the team in it until the final four minutes. Sharp led with six tackles, and Utterback had five tackles.

“They have some pretty good pass plays, but they never really got a big pass play on us,” Gibson said. “I’m happy with that effort. Once they got up on us, they were running the ball intentionally to run out the clock. We couldn’t get it back at the end.”

Van-Far plays another road Eastern Missouri Conference game at Bowling Green (2-3, 1-2 EMO) at 7 p.m. Friday.