Van-Far’s progress on Friday was foiled by flags.

Those flags were the penalty flags as the Indians accumulated 105 yards worth of penalties in a 32-18 home-opening loss to Russellville. Class 1 No. 10 Van-Far had beaten Russellville (1-1) in the past two meetings but couldn’t break into its one-possession deficit at the end of the first two quarters.

Head coach Lucas Gibson said Van-Far (1-1) had turnovers at inopportune times as well, starting with a lost fumble that was returned for at least 60 yards for a touchdown. Van-Far responded with a long touchdown pass to Gaven Gaston, who had two catches for 79 yards and two touchdowns, and seemed to have other promising plays like that until the flags flew.

“Penalties and turnovers killed us,” Gibson said. “Every time we’d get a big play, there was a penalty somewhere.”

Gibson said Gibson Condie salvaging a bad snap on a punt with a first-down run was called back, for example. Evan Utterback also made a first-down reception on fourth down in the third quarter while Van-Far was down a possession, but a penalty erased it.

Gaston also had a punt return for a touchdown to give Van-Far another positive play, but the negatives because of the penalties were more numerous. Van-Far finished with 152 rushing yards including nine carries for 55 yards by Ty Evans and nine carries for 50 yards and one touchdown by Utterback. Gibson Condie led the defense with 7.5 tackles.

Before playing at a Class 1 District 2 foe Louisiana (1-1) at 7 p.m. Friday, Gibson said the Indians have to cut down on the self-inflicted errors. Gibson said he hopes Van-Far can learn from one of the uglier games it played to face another triple-option team Louisiana.

“We have to be more fundamentally sound,” Gibson said. “We didn’t have very many penalties last week. We had some really good things happen but had some bad things happen at some inopportune times.”