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Logan Brown shakes hands with Purdue Coach, Scott Hinkle.
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DECEMBER 6, 2008 - LAS VEGAS
2006 Covington graduate and sophomore wrestler at Purdue University Logan Brown is on a mission. That mission is to put his name on the national stage by ultimately winning a national championship.
Those knowing Logan throughout his high school career, a career at Covington that resulted in the school's only state wrestling champion and virtually every school record seeing his name as the owner, knows not to underestimate him due to his drive and determination to succeed. If Logan sets winning a national championship as a goal by the time he's done with collegiate wrestling, by God he's going to give it everything he's got to achieve it.
Over the weekend, Logan took one more step in reaching his ultimate goal by putting together an impressive performance at the 2008 Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, a tournament that featured most of the premier college wrestlers in the nation at all weight classes.
After the two-day event, Logan found himself fourth on the podium at 197 pounds, an improvement over last year's effort in which he came up short of placing as freshman.
The tournament didn't start out the way Logan wanted as he was awarded a bye as a seeded wrestler.
He then received a medical forfeit victory over Ryan Allen of Boise State.
Chomping at the bit to get a full match on the mat, Logan dominated his first opponent, Vince Bordi of San Francisco State via an 8-2 decision.
He then cruised to a 5-1 decision over Rudi Burtschi of North Idaho in the Championship Quarterfinals. Burtschi advanced to the quarterfinal round by stunning nationally ranked Patrick Bond of Illinois, a wrestler who defeated Logan last year.
Assured a spot on the podium, Brown was looking for the top spot in the semi-finals. But he ran into the number two seed Craig Brewster of Nebraska and a close match turned into a 12-3 victory for Brewster as Logan was penalized twice for penalty points. Brewster would go on to capture the championship with a 10-2 victory over Richard Starks of Army in the finals.
Brown moved to the consolation semis and captured a hard-fought 5-4 decision over Cam Simaz of Cornell. Simaz lost his second match of the tournament and battled through the consolation rounds by defeating the highly publicized Cody Gardner of Ohio State and the top seed in the tournament, Tyrel Todd of Michigan.
Brown closed out the tournament with a 7-3 defeat in the Consolation Final to Cal St. Bakersfield's Riley Orozco.
With his fourth place finish in the 2008 season's first big collegiate tournament, Logan looks to move up from his #13 national ranking.
At 10-2 on the season, Logan looks to continue to climb his way up the ladder as the Boilermakers travel to Mount St. Joseph and Notre Dame on Saturday, December 21st.
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