MORE STATE COVERAGE... Logan Brown Wins State Title... Logan Brown, more than a state champ... Tom Barbee, 31 years worth the wait... Logan Brown shakes hands with Purdue Coach, Scott Hinkle.

The 2006 state champion from Covington High School is now 9-1 on the season and is four wins shy of 100 career wins after taking runner-up at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational over the weekend. Brown was seeded third and went 4-1 in the prestigious tournament where many of the top collegiate wrestlers in the nation were competing.

"It went alright," said Logan in regards to his weekend performance. "Obviously I'd like to do better. But overall I wrestled really well until that last match."

That last match was the championship match against the second ranked wrestler in the nation, Cam Simaz of Cornell. Brown dropped a 6-0 decision in a match he failed to convert on his takedown attempts.

"I opened up where I needed to open up," Brown said of his match against Simaz. "I took that first shot and was in kind of deep when we went out of bounds and then I shut down. I can't do that because that's when I get in trouble and I end up getting taken down."

Brown began the tournament on Friday with a hard-fought 5-0 victory over Caylor Williams of North Carolina-Greensbooro and then dominated Neil Delaney of Air Force with a 10-2 major decision.

The #10 nationally ranked wrestler closed out the first day of the tournament with another dominant victory in the quarterfinal, 10-4 over Brandon Palik of Drexel.

This set up a huge match-up with Big Ten rival Anthony Biondo of Michigan in the semi-final on Saturday. The two have faced three times before with Brown winning twice and Biondo once in what were all close matches.

"I knew right away going out that I could take him down," Brown explained of Biondo. "I wasn't really sure about get out from bottom because he is really good on top. That's something we've been working on is getting out from the bottom."

The match went much like the previous matches between the two as Brown won a 7-6 decision to advance to the final.

"I just told myself to keep wrestling hard no matter what and that's what I did," Brown said. "I got a takedown and then he got a takedown, but I just kept wrestling after he took me down."

In the final against Simaz, however, Brown found out what he needs to work on to climb the national rankings.

"I have to go back to the drawing board and just keep working," he said. "I know what I have to do. I have to open up again, like I did in the beginning of the tournament."

Opening up, as in wrestling physical, aggressive and with an attitude. It's a style that has carried him throughout his career.

"Definitely," Brown agreed in regards to the physical attitude. "You know, the way my high school wrestling was. It's the way I've been brought up where I wrestled older guys and they kind of beat me up a little bit. It's carried over and I like to be the physical kind. Sometimes guys don't like my style, but that's the way I wrestle."

Brown's style has earned him three trips to the NCAA Championships, but earning All-American status is still out there to be accomplished. That goal is always in the back of his mind.

"Big time," Brown emphasized. "That's why I'm here. I'm not there (All-American) yet, but I've been knocking at the door. I'm definitely going to keep working and try to get there this year."

To get there Brown is changing his strategy in regards to the number of matches he'll wrestle this year.

"Last year maybe I wrestled a few too many matches," he explained. "I felt a little beat down at the end of the year. This year I feel we are doing the right stuff."

Including drilling with 184 pound teammate A.J. Kissel, who redshirted last year.

"Our styles are different, so we wrestle some," Brown explained. "It's not good we wrestle all the time because we beat the crap out of each other when we do wrestle. But he's really good on top and I'm good on my feet, so we can work on defending each other. We push each other a lot though."

So far the results have been what Brown has been looking for.