Centered Cayko will be tough to derail in quest for another championship

Clad in her “Cute But Psycho” socks and her Eaglecrest High School singlet, Blythe Cayko eventually produced the serious face she needed for her photos at the CHSAA Winter Sports Media Day.

The Raptors senior girls wrestling star — who is an overwhelming favorite to win a second state championship — is as well-rounded and universally liked as any dominant athlete off the mat, but when the serious side comes out (which takes a process), it means trouble for anybody that steps into the circle with her.

“I was just trying to showcase my personality as much possible and trying not to look like every other wrestler,” Cayko said of her photoshoot, which featured plenty of smiles and some fun pictures with Eaglecrest head coach Horacio Vialpando and assistant Melissa Myers.

“Looking all scary and flexing, there’s some fun in that, but at the end of the day, that’s now how I would describe myself,” she added. “They asked me for a more a serious shot, so I had to close my eyes, fully relax my face and center myself. When I get focused, I tend to get focused on what I’m doing and what I want and nothing else matters.”

Nobody was able to derailed a focused Cayko last season, as she had one of the most dominant seasons that any female wrestler from Colorado has had since the sport earned pilot status and eventually became sanctioned by the Colorado High School Activities Association.

Cayko — whose Slavic last name is pronounced “sai-kow,” (as in psycho) which she said is a great “conversation starter” when people find out — completed a perfect junior season with a pin of Calhan’s Taylor Knox in the 185-pound state championship match at Ball Arena in February, which made her 32-for-32 in wins by pin.

She was an All-American as champion of the Reno Tournament of Champions as well as she continued an evolution from a wrestler who placed fifth as a freshman and third as a sophomore as she battled through the aftereffects of a bout with COVID-19.
Cayko credits her dominance on the mat to the way she is able to completely “center” herself.

Twenty minutes before a bout, Cayko dons her AirPods and turns on a playlist that is carefully crafted to get her in the right headspace for any opponent, from one she knows nothing about to one like Knox, a state champion in 2020 who she defeated three times last season.

“That was the biggest shift in my wrestling, when I realized that I can’t be dependent on expecting a certain reaction from my opponent,” she said. “I need to know how to make the most of any situation I’ve been given. I do a lot of visualizing to keep myself calm. In earlier years, I would think so much about the what-ifs, that by the time the match got there, I would be waiting for a certain thing to happen. I would get complacent and lose some confidence.”

While very few other female wrestlers can do it just like Cayko, she is happy to be a mentor.

Vialpando (in his first season as head coach of the Eaglecrest program) has a big group of wrestlers this season (which come from several schools throughout the Cherry Creek School District) and many of them are new to the sport. With so many wrestlers, Cayko sometimes sits in the corner for a teammate when the coaches are busy during tournaments.

She hopes most to leave the impression on the younger wrestlers that the work never stops if you want to be great.

“When I tell them I’m working on something in particular in practice, they sometimes say ‘didn’t you just win state?,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m perfect.”

Cayko said she currently doesn’t plan to attend a college with women’s wrestling and may in fact opt to try to compete in track & field, where she is also a talented thrower.