Editor’s note: With the 2026-27 school year fast approaching, The Chronicle is taking one final look back at the last athletic season and recognizing the area’s top student-athletes. A complete list of honorees is included at the conclusion of this profile, which details the efforts of one of the honorees — Tyce Vigre.
There are plenty of statistics that help tell the story of Tyce Vigre’s high school career.
There are points and rebounds. District championships and state tournament appearances.
There is also the 4.0 grade point average he maintained through all four years of high school.
But perhaps the number that best explains how Vigre became one of The Chronicle’s Academic Athletes of the Year is this one: 6:30 a.m.
That’s when Vigre would regularly meet longtime basketball coach Dennis Bower for workouts before school.
Not once in a while. Two or three mornings a week.
Bower, the former Onalaska High School basketball coach who has coached and trained Vigre for seven years, remembers a much different player when Vigre first showed up as a sixth grader.
He was shy. He was timid. He lacked confidence. Bower wasn’t even certain basketball would ultimately be Vigre’s sport.
Seven years later, Bower calls Vigre the most improved player he has coached in 45 years of coaching basketball.
That transformation didn’t happen accidentally.
“Through dedication, grit and determination, he made himself into the player he is today,” Bower wrote in a letter to The Chronicle.
Those early morning workouts lasted about an hour and were followed by a trip to school, at various points Mossyrock, Toledo and Napavine, in time for first period. Vigre sometimes called Bower looking for another workout on the day of a game or over the weekend.
The work eventually turned shooting and ball handling into strengths, while Vigre supplemented his basketball training with strength, speed, and agility work.
And then the results started showing up.
As a freshman at Mossyrock, Vigre was already part of a state tournament team. By his sophomore season, he was playing a major role for the Vikings.
That season produced one of the signature moments of his career.
Mossyrock reached the 1B District 4 championship game against Naselle in February 2024. The Vikings hadn’t won a district championship since 1972.
They didn’t just win it. They rolled to a 79-35 victory.
Vigre, then only a sophomore, scored 19 points and knocked down four 3-pointers in the third quarter as Mossyrock ended the school’s 52-year district title drought.
He was named second team all-league that season and later earned first team recognition on Eli Sports Network’s 1B all-state tournament team.
Bower describes Vigre with one word: winner.
Every basketball team Vigre played on earned a trip to the state tournament, according to Bower. But what impressed his longtime coach wasn’t simply scoring.
It was everything else.
Offensive rebounds. Chasing down players in transition. Defending an opponent’s best scorer. Winning conditioning drills. Doing the things that often don’t make it into a box score.
Bower said Vigre routinely won conditioning sets and had a knack for finding offensive rebounds that gave his team another possession. He also recalled an AAU game in which Vigre insisted on defending one of Washington’s highest-ranked players and frustrated him throughout the game.
Vigre’s junior season brought another uniform and another opportunity.
At Toledo, he became an important piece of a Riverhawks team trying to get back to state after falling one game short the previous season.
During a December stretch, Vigre scored 11 points against Onalaska, added 11 points and six rebounds against Friday Harbor, and then led Toledo with 16 points in a 76-30 win over Coupeville.
But one of his biggest performances came when the stakes were considerably higher.
In the District 4 semifinals, Toledo faced Central 2B League champion Napavine with a trip to the district championship and a state berth on the line.
Vigre led Toledo with 16 points in a 55-42 victory and was named MVP of the game.
It was exactly the kind of performance Bower had come to expect.
He calls Vigre a “big-time game player,” someone whose best performances tend to come against the best competition. Bower specifically remembers Vigre scoring nearly 20 points in a district upset of Napavine during his junior season and described him as the best player on the floor in the district championship game against Toledo.
For his senior season, the now 6-foot-3 Vigre landed at Napavine.
Again, the production followed.
Playing forward, Vigre shot a combined 48 percent from the field and emerged as the Tigers’ top outside threat, often while drawing an opponent’s best defender. He also led Napavine with 69 offensive rebounds.
And some of his best shooting came against some of the toughest teams on the schedule.
Against top-10 league opponents Toledo and Adna, Vigre connected on 12 of 23 attempts from beyond the arc over six games, better than 52 percent. Expand that group to include Oregon 4A powers Marshfield and Scappoose, both of which spent time ranked No. 1, along with league opponent Rainier, and Vigre made 16 of 39 three-point attempts over 10 games, good for 41 percent.
His Hoopsalytics plus-minus player impact rating further reflected his impact on the floor.
Yet those basketball numbers tell only half of the story behind his selection as one of The Chronicle’s Academic Athletes of the Year.
While Vigre was putting in the hours required to compete at that level — practices, games, travel, weight training, and those early morning workouts — he was doing something equally impressive in the classroom.
After four years of high school, Vigre graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
Napavine’s published honor rolls repeatedly placed Vigre on the school’s Superintendent’s List during his senior year.
Vigre also finished ranked No. 1 in a Napavine senior class of more than 70 students. Because he attended Napavine for only his senior year, however, he was not eligible for valedictorian honors under school policy.
For Bower, the connection between the athlete and the student is obvious.
The same competitiveness that makes Vigre want to finish first in a conditioning drill or take the assignment of guarding the other team’s best player showed up academically.
“That competitive fire also carries over into other areas of his life,” Bower wrote. “Tyce graduated from high school with a 4.0 GPA, which says a great deal about his discipline, focus, and commitment to excellence.”
Even basketball wasn’t the end of Vigre’s athletic involvement.
As a senior at Napavine, he also competed in track and field and helped set a new school record in the 4x400 meter relay. Vigre also finished his career ranked fourth all-time at Napavine in the individual 400 meters while competing in the 100 and 200 meters, high jump and long jump.
But Bower believes Vigre’s greatest contribution to a team can’t necessarily be measured with a stopwatch, GPA, or basketball statistic.
He calls him a “culture carrier.”
It’s Bower’s term for the player who establishes what is expected from everyone else, the player who practices hard, competes, encourages teammates, and leads through his own effort.
“He brings such passion to the game, and he refuses to have a bad practice or give anything less than his best effort,” Bower wrote. “He sets the example and tone for a program.”
From a timid sixth grader whose coach wondered whether he would stick with basketball to a 4.0 student, state tournament veteran and accomplished high school athlete, Vigre’s progression is ultimately a story about what sustained effort can produce.
That’s also what The Chronicle’s Academic Athletes of the Year recognition is intended to celebrate.
Achievement on Friday nights or in packed gymnasiums is easy to see.
The homework after practice isn’t.
Neither are the early mornings, the extra workouts, the studying, the conditioning sessions or the thousands of repetitions that happen when nobody is watching.
In Vigre’s case, they added up.
Bower, after watching that process unfold for seven years, believes the qualities that carried Vigre this far will continue well beyond high school.
“He has the work ethic, competitiveness, character, and toughness to be very successful in the next phase and chapter of his life,” Bower wrote.
For one of The Chronicle’s Academic Athletes of the Year, the next chapter is just beginning.
The rest of the team so far:
High school coaches often (correctly) say that it’s student-athlete, emphasizing that it’s student first, athlete second.
These prep competitors managed to sustain excellence both on the field and in the classroom, competing at the varsity level while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average during their respective schools final grading period of the 2025-26 school year, as confirmed by the school’s honor rolls and/or a school official.
Several of them did it while playing multiple sports, and many of them did it while missing in-person class time for competitions, both during the regular season and during district and state tournaments.
Teams not listed that have 4.0 student-athletes will be added to this article at chronline.com when those results are available from the respective schools.
The Chronicle’s 2025-26 All-Area Academic Team:
Centralia
Owen Sharp, Caden Erickson, Kadin Yeung, Kycen Donahue, Tyler Fagerness, Andres Cruz, Will Guthrie, Cameron Lewis, Anna Jones, Joey King, Melissa Baine, Nadelyn Barragan, Mackenzie Erickson, Lydia Lowe, Brooklyn Sprague, Lillian Gruginski, Jayden Krogness, Cyndal Sills, Satsuki Bringman, An Nhat Nam Nguyen, Ella Rothdeutsch.
W.F. West
Collin Elder, John Jussila, Seth Norby Betts, Race Scalici, Francesca Remund, Taylor Tobin, Ayanna Harmon, Brooklyn Spencer.
Onalaska
Ferra Gust, Aksel Iverson, Kolby Iverson, Peyton Iverson, Kennedy Kinsman.
Napavine
Cal Bullock, Taylen Evander, Hannah Fay, Clara Fay, Briley Fay, Peyton Hernandez, Ava Ondong, Wyatt Stroup, Madelyn Stroup, Tyce Vigre, Tyler Watson.
Toledo
Nico Acosta, Bode Buswell, Ivana Cabrera, Trevin Gale, Quinn Heschberger, Peyton Holter, Parker Hurtado, Taysia Miller, Kaylie Nef, Xtyn Norberg, Zaya Norberg, Barelyn Nyberg, Gemma Wallace.
Adna
Megan Stout, Tieander Olson, Trevin Salme, Presley Strodmeier, Teagan Baggenstos.
Mossyrock
Kyle Brockway, Taylor Schwartz, Annika Ball, Calliope Schultz, Maci Rashoff, Brooke Schwartz, Nathaniel Sievers, Hailey Allen, Audrey Ollikainen, Sadi Rashoff.
Rainier
Katelyn Eckroth, Zach Hamilton, Yazama Gurnsey, Komaire Robles, Courtney Eckroth, Francesca Halpin, Elysa Plowman, John Paul Sprouffske.
Pe Ell
Madi Engel, Ava King, Liam McGrath, Karli Phelps, Blake Nelson, Maisy King.
