Kats earn postseason All-SLC honors
11/20/2018 3:01:00 PM | Football
Full Release From Southland Conference
FRISCO – The Sam Houston State Bearkats placed five players on the all-Southland Conference team on Tuesday, including three first team selections.
Seniors Davion Davis and Derick Roberson, along with sophomore Zyon McCollum were all named to the first team. Meanwhile, juniors Nathan Stewart and Erick Fowler were both named to the second team.
Additionally, Tristan Wendt, Adrian Contreras, Hunter Brown and Tre Honshtein each earned honorable mention honors.
For Davis, it is the third straight season he has been an all-SLC selection, including a first-team nod each of the last two years. He was the 2017 SLC Offensive Player of the Year and was on his way to possibly earning that honor once again before suffering a season-ending injury early in Sam Houston's win over Southeastern Louisiana, essentially cutting his senior year short by four games.
Still, Davis made his mark in both 2018 and in his career. He finished 2018 with 569 yards receiving and was leading the SLC with 10 touchdown catches and 11 total touchdowns prior to his injury. Just one week earlier he set the SLC all-time record for touchdown receptions with the 40th of his career as part of a day that saw him tie his own school record with 13 catches for 162 yards and two touchdowns at Lamar. That came one week after he tied another of his school records with four touchdown catches in a win at Northwestern State.
Davis is one of just five players on the all-SLC team to have made it in three consecutive seasons, including Stewart who has pulled off the feat as a freshman, sophomore and junior.
On the defensive side, Roberson was one of the top forces in the league throughout 2018. The senior defensive end totaled 68 tackles and 20.5 tackles for loss, including 15.0 sacks which tied an SHSU single-season school record and is tied for the most sacks in all of FCS.
He also ranks second in FCS with five forced fumbles, along with a blocked kick, safety and two official pass breakups. He had just one sack through the first three games of the year, but then took off with 11.5 sacks over his next five games, including 3.0 sacks each in wins over Stephen F. Austin and Northwestern State.
For McCollum, it is the first postseason honor of his career after being named a preseason all-conference choice coming into the year. A 6-4 cornerback, McCollum presented problems for opposing receivers all season and finished the year with three interceptions and eight pass breakups for a Bearkat defense that allowed just 219.5 passing yards per game, a mark that was the best in the SLC.
The Galveston native also finished with 44 tackles, including 1.5 TFL from his cornerback spot, and turned in his best game of the year in the season finale vs HBU when he picked off a pair of passes, including one he returned for a touchdown. He also forced a fumble in the victory.
Both Stewart and Fowler were named to the second team, with Stewart doing so despite being one of just two receivers in the SLC to amass 1,000 yards for the season. He surpassed that mark in the season finale to finish with 1,063 yards and five scores to become just the fourth player in FCS history to reach 1,000 receiving yards as a freshman, sophomore and junior.
Always a big-play threat, Stewart averaged 18.3 yards per catch and 96.6 yards per game for the year. He finished with six 100-yard games, including each of the last four games of the year. He put up exactly 500 yards and had four of his touchdowns in that final four-game stretch.
For Fowler, he successfully made the transition from linebacker to defensive end and combined with Roberson to give the Kats one of the most disruptive duos in the Southland. He finished the year with 40 tackles and a pair of fumble recoveries, but also ranked ninth in the league in sacks (5.0) and tackles for loss (14.0). The Bearkats would finish the regular season second in the SLC in total sacks and tackles for loss.
Sam Houston also added four honorable mention selections, including Contreras who was 12th in the league with 78 tackles for the year to go with an interception and a forced fumble. A team captain, Contreras closed out his career ranking eighth all-time at SHSU in tackles.
Meanwhile, Wendt was a preseason all-conference selection and was the only Bearkat offensive lineman to start all 11 games on the year, doing so at center for the second straight year. Brown also started all 11 games at middle linebacker for SHSU, ranking seventh in the SLC with 97 tackles to go with 3.5 sacks and six tackles for loss.
Honshtein held down the Bearkats' kicking duties once again in 2018 and nailed 14 of 18 field goal tries, along with hitting 36 of 37 PATs. The senior drove 20 of his 60 kickoffs for touchbacks and finished his career with 46 made field goals, which is third all-time at SHSU.
