Clovis North earns trip to D-II football final

Trent Barnes and Bryan Parmer might lack Chris Brown's name recognition, but the Clovis North High tailback duo showed Friday night why two sets of legs are better than one.

Barnes and Parmer churned out 99 rushing yards apiece and combined for three second-half touchdowns as the visiting Broncos blasted Memorial and a hobbled Brown 35-20 in the Central Section Division II semifinals.

After relying mostly on Christian Rossi's right arm in the first half, Clovis North coach Cory Hall turned to his ground game in the second after realizing that Memorial's linebackers were aggressively flowing to the football.

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Too aggressively.

"We set 'em up," Hall said. "They kept going like flies to a blue light to that little shift, so I just told the running backs to cut back, and it worked."

Parmer's 6-yard touchdown with 6:02 left in the third quarter put the Broncos ahead 21-14 after the senior had a 41-yard scamper earlier in the drive.

Barnes then put the game away with fourth-quarter touchdown runs of 2 and 14 yards against a Panthers defense that had been on the field too long in the second half.

"We had great up-front blocking, and a lot of holes opened up," Barnes said. "We kept running, and we wore them down."

Clovis North (8-3), the No. 2 seed, will travel to top-seeded Garces (10-1) for next week's section final. That's the same Rams team that eliminated the Broncos in last year's playoffs.

"It's personal this week," Parmer said. "We're coming after them."

Memorial had similar designs. But the Panthers, who aren't built to overcome big deficits to begin with, were in deep trouble after Brown sustained a third-quarter knee injury that kept him off the field for several key plays.

Just 38 of Brown's 144-yard rushing total came in the second half, when Memorial (8-4) went the entire third quarter and the f! irst 7 m inutes of the fourth without a first down. By then it was a 21-point deficit.

"He tried to fight through it, but [the injury] was slowing him down," Panthers coach Anthony Goston said. "He gutted through. That's all you can ask."

Making matters worse for Memorial, left tackle David Keller sat out the second half with a concussion.

Rossi threw two first-half touchdown passes, a 72-yard bomb to Marcus Rose on the first play of a drive and a 13-yard strike to Collin Hansen that put the Broncos ahead 14-7.

Brown answered with a 40-yard touchdown, which turned out to be his last big run of the night.

"We knew they have a lot of players that go both ways," Hall said, "so we wanted to tire them out and wear on them."