Dec. 2, 2002
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - Junior strong safety Brian Lowder was selected first-team Verizon University Division Academic All-America Monday, the first Western Kentucky University football player to earn the honor since 1995.
Lowder joins Brian Bixler, Mark Fatkin (1984), Tim Ford (1981) and James Barber (1971) as the only Hilltoppers to earn first-team accolades. Patrick Goodman was a second-team Academic All-American selection in 1998 and '99.
It's Lowder's third honor this season. He was selected first-team Verizon Academic All-District IV and also voted to the Gateway Conference's first-team All-Academic squad.
A 5-foot-9, 195-pound Bowling Green, Ky., resident, Lowder leads the Western secondary with career highs of 74 tackles and six stops behind the line of scrimmage in his first season as a starter. He has also recorded an interception, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery, and picked up the only sack of his career in his first collegiate start at I-A Kansas State Aug. 31. In the Hilltoppers' last four games, Lowder has averaged 7.5 tackles per contest. He collected 10 stops in the regular-season finale at Southern Illinois Nov. 16 to help Western clinch a share of its first Gateway Conference championship, then had nine last week in the opening round of the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs against rival Murray State.
His efforts have contributed to a unit that leads the Gateway in all five defensive statistical categories - rush, pass, pass efficiency, total and scoring - and that tops all NCAA I-AA scholarship programs allowing only 248.8 yards per game. The Hilltoppers became the second team ever in the league's 18-year history to allow fewer than 10 points per conference game, giving up 63 points in seven contests.
Lowder and No. 15 WKU (9-3, 6-1 Gateway) will take on conference co-champion No. 2 Western Illinois (11-1, 6-1 Gateway) in the quarterfinals of the NCAA playoffs Saturday at 1 p.m. (CST) in Macomb, Ill.
- WKU -
