Tumwater’s Cy Hicks an early heavyweight title contender, but says there’s still work to be done

Cy Hicks wants to make this clear. He isn’t there — yet.

The Tumwater High School junior is an early pick to contend for a Class 2A heavyweight wrestling title, but this is the point he wants to emphasize.

There’s a lot of work to be done before that can happen.

“That’s my motivation every day,” Hicks said. “There’s somebody bigger and better than me out there, and I need to be the best. If I can get a state championship, that’s validation for me.

“But I haven’t gotten it yet. I’m working towards it.”

Last season’s result — Hicks took third in the 285-pound weight class at Mat Classic XXVIII as a sophomore — is last season’s result.

Sure, Hunter Mullins — the two-time defending 2A heavyweight champion from Orting, Hicks’ cousin, and the only wrestler to beat him at the Tacoma Dome last season — has graduated and is wrestling at Wyoming.

But Hicks said there could be another wrestler out there that has the ability to challenge him.

He’s the top-ranked 2A heavyweight wrestler in the state, but as of now, Hicks said that doesn’t hold much weight either — a state title is the only way to prove that.

“If I work hard enough, I can achieve it,” Hicks said. “I’m working hard, but I’m not there yet. I’m not to postseason level. I need to keep working harder and harder.”

Tony Prentice, Tumwater’s coach, echoes that sentiment.

“He’s not ready yet, but he has the ability,” Prentice said. “When it’s time, we’ll know. He’s as good as anyone in the state in heavyweight.”

Hicks is undefeated this season, including winning his third consecutive championship at Tumwater’s annual Pat Alexander Invitational this past Saturday, where he pinned each of the three opponents he faced.

“I think, ultimately, he knows where he wants to be,” Prentice said.

Hicks has a piece of notebook paper hanging over his bed at home. He listed four goals for the school year, and has already checked off two of them:

Earn a spot as a two-way starter on Tumwater’s football team.

Hicks turned out to be the only two-way tackle the T-Birds had, and was an Olympian All-Area pick on offense, where he blocked for a team that averaged 39 points per game.

Become an all-league football selection.

Hicks did that, too. He was a 2A Evergreen Conference first-team selection on defense, and finished the season with 55 tackles and three sacks.

The next item is a state wrestling title. The fourth is to compete in throwing events at the track and field state championships in May.

Two down, two to go, but he’s taking the goals one at a time.

“When I switch from sport to sport, my mindset is purely on the next sport,” Hicks said. “My whole life right now is wrestling. I wake up, go to school and wrestle.”

Caden Hicks, Cy’s younger brother, is also his sparring partner at practice this season. He said it’s clear how driven Cy is to achieve the next goal on the list.

“His whole life is just, ‘I want to take first in state this year,’ ” Caden Hicks said. “All I’m here to do is help push him along the way.”

The two try to hold each other accountable in practice, Caden Hicks said, and turn everything outside of it — doing dishes at home, working to get the best grades in school — into a competition.

Caden Hicks, a sophomore who competes at 220 pounds, said the good-natured sibling rivalry hits its crux on the wrestling mat.

“We do love each other, we’re a really close family, but we don’t really think of each other as brothers when we’re on the mat,” he said. “We’re trying to make each other better.”

Said Cy Hicks: “I couldn’t be here without my team, and the hard-working coaches and wrestlers. We push each other.”

“We’ll sit down and watch wrestling matches in the Olympics or the NCAAs and point out different things,” Caden Hicks said. “Then, he’ll tell me, ‘You can do that all you want because I know you can.’

“He always believes in me, and makes me a lot better because he’s always by my side.”

Beyond his brother, Prentice said Cy Hicks has grown into a more vocal leader for the T-Birds this season, which will continue to help him improve.

“He’s the biggest, strongest kid in the room,” Prentice said. “He has been since he was a freshman, but he’s not really vocal. Having him assume that role leads me to believe that, mentally, he’s in the right place.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2016 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Tumwater’s Cy Hicks an early heavyweight title contender, but says there’s still work to be done."