HUNTSVILLE — The Sam Houston Bearkats stopped Liberty on a 2-point conversion with 1:10 to play to hold on for a 20-18 win over the Flames at Bowers Stadium on Friday, keeping their hopes of a Conference USA championship alive with one day left in the regular season. 

The Bearkats (9-3, 6-2 CUSA) did their part to earn a berth in next week's Conference USA Championship Game at Jax State, but will need the Gamecocks to do their part as well on Saturday when they travel to WKU for a 3:00 p.m. kick on ESPNU.  

With a JSU win over the Hilltoppers in Bowling Green, Sam Houston would make a return trip to Jacksonville next Friday to battle the Gamecocks for the league crown. Meanwhile, a WKU win on Saturday over JSU would force a rematch between the teams the following week on the Gamecocks' home field.  

Sam Houston knew the stakes going into Friday's game against Liberty, the league's defending champ who put itself in the position to control its own destiny by defeating WKU last week behind a rushing attack which totaled 419 yards.  

But the Bearkat defense held the Flames in check for the bulk of the night, allowing just 262 total yards for the game. Much of that came in the game's final quarter, including the game's most explosive play, a 33-yard touchdown run by LU quarterback Kaidon Salter which pulled the Flames to within two points with only 70 seconds to play; however, lightning did not strike twice for Liberty as Briceon Hayes picked off the 2-point conversion in the end zone to halt the attack and the Kats' recovered the ensuing onside kick attempt to seal the deal.  

Sam Houston scored on its first drive of the game and held that lead for the entirety of the afternoon behind 202 yards passing and a pair of touchdowns by quarterback Hunter Watson, and 96 yards on the ground by Jay Ducker. Watson completed 19 of his 33 passes, finding Simeon Evans six times for 83 yards and each of the Kats' two touchdowns.  

Defensively, the Kats were everywhere, with Trey Fields and Isaiah Cash each leading the team with eight stops apiece. Cash and former Liberty defensive back Jaylon Jimmerson each picked off Salter in the game, with Bearkat defenders adding nine pass breakups and getting home for a pair of sacks. 

The Bearkat offense, which had struggled to get going of late, looked good early on with 232 yards to its credit in the first half took a 17-9 lead into the break. It used up 4:30 off the clock on the game's opening drive and got a 39-yard field goal from Christian Pavon for an early 3-0 lead.   

Liberty took advantage of a Bearkat miscue on special teams two drives later to get on the board with a safety, but Sam Houston responded with consecutive touchdown drives in the second quarter on connections between Watson and Evans to go up 17-2. 

On the other side, the Bearkat defense was in control, holding the Flames to just 40 yards until late in the second quarter. Jimmerson picked off Salter to set up the Kats' second touchdown, but the Flames got back some of the momentum later in the quarter when they forced a turnover of their own and the offense responded with a 51-yard touchdown drive which culminated in a 10-yard pass from Salter to Elijah Canion in the end zone to pull back to within a score at 17-9 at the half. 

The Kats quickly extended the lead to 20-9 with another field goal from Pavon with 5:13 left in the third, but the Flames were able to hold the offense at bay for the bulk of the remainder of the half and drew even on a 43-yard field goal by Colin Karhu at 7:20 left in the game.  

Liberty extinguished the Kats' next drive and marched down the field itself, down 20-12, to get into the red zone after personal foul on the Bearkats. But the Sam Houston defense held firm at that point, getting a sack and forcing three incompletions by Salter to retake possession with just 2:38 to play.  

Sam Houston had a chance to put the game away, but could not and gave the ball back to LU with 2:16 on the clock. It took the Flames six plays to move into Bearkat territory before Salter got loose on his biggest run of the day, racing up the right sideline to draw the Flames to within two points. That set things up for the 2-point conversion, but defensive lineman Denver Warren immediately blew the play up from the interior line and Hayes got his hands on the ball to deny the points.  

POSTGAME NOTES 
- Jaylon Jimmerson and Isiaah Cash each had their second interception of the season in the game. Liberty had gone 30 straight games without throwing multiple interceptions until Friday night, with the last multi-INT game coming on October 15, 2022 
- The secondary also finished with nine pass breakups, tying its season high set earlier this year vs Hawaii 
- Sam Houston has now totally flipped the script from 2023 to 2024, going 3-9 in 12 games a year ago and going 9-3 in 12 games this season 
- The win secures, at worst, a top-3 finish for the Bearkats in the final CUSA standings 
- Sam Houston has now put itself in position for a possible 10-win season in 2024. It would be the 12th 10-win season in program history and the 16th in KC Keeler's head coaching career 
- Christian Pavon's field goal on the opening drive of the game marked the first points for the Bearkats on an opening drive since scoring a touchdown on its first possession at UTEP 
- Pavon hit a pair of field goals in the game, his first game with multiple field goals since that same win at UTEP 
- Hunter Watson's touchdown in the second quarter to Simeon Evans was the first passing touchdown for the Bearkats since the second quarter of the loss vs WKU on October 16 
- Evans' two touchdown grabs makes him the second Kat to have multiple touchdown grabs in a game this season, joining Qua'Vez Humphreys who had two vs Hawaii 
- The Flames converted a fourth down in the third quarter to stop a streak of nine straight fourth-down stops by the Bearkat defense; however, SHSU responded with two more stops in the game. The Kats have now stopped opponents on fourth try on 10 of their last 12 tries 
- Noah Smith hauled in seven passes for 56 yards to become the fifth player in program history with 200 career receptions. He also extended his streak to 30 consecutive games with a reception 
- Liberty finished with just 83 yards in the air. It is the second straight game a Bearkat opponent has thrown for less than 100 yards, and the fourth time this year