The defensively powerful but also physically dominant and offensively adept Kui won the state wrestling championship at 182 pounds this past March. Hewill be looking todefend his crown starting in December as he embarks on what should beafruitful and productive senior campaign on the mats.

When the solidly constructed 5- foot-9 Kui went down to Atlantic City-for his third consecutive yearly appearance at Boardwalk Hall – he became only the fifth Spartan in the school’ s history to earn awrestling state crown. First hepinned Kyle Lightner of Delaware Valley in3:15 in the pre-quarterfinals, then he turned back Kyle Inlander ofRidgewood, 9-3,

in the quarterfinals before beating Anthony Vetrano of Middletown North, 10-4, in the semifinals. Then he defeated Luke Drugac of Morris Knolls, 5-4, in the state final.

“ Brandon isextremely hard to score on, that’ s part of what makes him such a difficult matchup for an opponent,” said DePaul coach Keith Karsen.“ He’ s almost impossible to take down from a neutral position and he is also very good defensively and on his feet. He has really good hips and for a big kid is extremely agile and flexible.”

Also a genuinely superb strategic planner, thinking four and five steps ahead much of the time, Kui has a career mark of 109-17 at DePaul, going 30-11 his freshman season, 40-5 asasophomore when hetook eighth at the states and 39-1 for the 2015-2016 campaign.

He will be looking at the history

books since he became only the fifth wrestling state champion in school history – Gene Mills( 1976), Sal LaCorte( 1981) and Steve DePetro( 1982) – are three of the others. Dave McFadden, who took state titles in 2014 and 2015 and was the Atlantic Coast Conference freshman of the year this past season at Virginia Tech, is who Kui will be chasing this season ashelooks to become only the second DePaul wrestler ever to win two state titles.

“ I just want to keep working hard, doing a lot of conditioning, running and going hard and well with the weights,” said the modest and personable Kui, who trains in Montville and Wayne with former Clifton High School two-time state champion Karl Monaco.“ I picked up the sport from my brother Will [ 2015 DePaul graduate now wrestling at Columbia University ] and Ireally loved it and

ANNE-MARIE CARUSO