Terrapins wrestling 149-pound Shyheim Brown’s career started smoothly.

His rookie season, he redshirted and competed at 141 pounds on the open circuit. He captured 32 wins, good for second on the team. Over the next two seasons, the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania native notched 37 combined wins.

Despite all that, coach Kerry McCoy decided to switch things up this season, opting to start 149-pound Wade Hodges, a highly touted redshirt freshman from Ohio.

For Brown, that was a tough reality to embrace.

“It was definitely hard in the beginning,” Brown said. “I had a talk with [coach]. You always listen to coach; he knows what’s best. I just got to go with whatever choice he makes.”

Brown has competed solely on the open circuit this season, instead. While the competition isn’t at the same level as the Big Ten, Brown has compiled a 12-3 record. Three of those wins have come by technical fall, which give him 15 for his career.

That’s more than both 133-pound Geoffrey Alexander and 157-pound Lou Mascola have compiled in their five-year careers.

“I consider myself someone who can score a lot of points,” Brown said. “Just letting loose, clearing my mind before I go out there and getting it done. I have the ability to score a lot of points. I know what I’m capable of.”

He won’t be headed to Iowa City, Iowa for the Big Ten tournament as a starter this season, but Brown will compete at the National Collegiate Open on March 5.

“That’s basically … the national championship for guys who aren’t competing or starting,” McCoy said. “You go there and win that tournament, [and] it puts you in a good position to build for the future.”

In his second season in College Park, Brown rose as high as No. 8 in the nation en route to an at-large bid at the NCAA Championships. And while he wasn’t eligible to qualify for the national rankings this season, the redshirt junior has maintained his focus.

This season, he’s learned to wrestle at a higher weight class than he had grown accustomed to. But McCoy said Brown needs to put in more work to become a starter next season.

“He’s got to have a great spring and summer going beyond whatever his perceived limits are,” McCoy said. “If he thinks working out three times a week during the summer is all he needs to do, he may need to work four times, or five times. Put himself where he can look back at the end and say he gave it all he had.”