GARRETT CYBERPATRIOT PREPS FOR STATE ROUND
GARRETT - The Garrett High School and Middle School CyberPatriot teams will compete in the State Round of competition on Monday, December 11 against some of the best in the Hoosier State.
CyberPatriot’s National Youth Cyber Defense Competition is the world’s largest cybersecurity competition. It is sponsored by the Air & Space Forces Association and challenges teams of high school and middle school students to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities in virtual operating systems. Using a proprietary competition system, teams are scored on how secure they make the system. Top teams advance through the online round of competition, and the best of the best advance to the in-person National Finals Competition.
GHS qualified for the most competitive division (Platinum) while GMS looks to win its third straight state title. Both teams have taken part in several training rounds and qualification rounds in both October and November. After the qualification rounds all high school teams across the nation were placed in three categories. Platinum for Top 30%, Gold for middle 40% and Silver for final 30%. All middle school teams compete in the same division for the State Round.
At the conclusion of the State Round, several teams will advance to the National Semifinals. The top 25% of Platinum Tier teams will advance to the Semifinals while the top 50% of all middle school teams nationally will move on to the next round.
This is the third consecutive year that Garrett High School will compete in the State Round at the highest division. GHS will be one of just nine teams in Indiana who qualified for the Platinum Tier. Last year, GHS placed 10th in the State Round’s Platinum Division.
The Garrett High School CyberPatriot team is led by juniors Mahlan Dircksen, Kamerin Goss and Brayson Heltsley They are joined by sophomores Logan Colgan and Sydney Suelzer as well as freshman Dante Maslin.
“This group is everything you look for in a tough competition like this,” Garrett CyberPatriot coach Bill Thomas said. “Most of them have been in this program for several years and continue to impress with their problem solving skills.”
Garrett Middle School has a team of five new competitors after winning the state title in each of the last two seasons. GMS will be represented in this year’s State Round by eighth graders Kylie Bergman and Owen Fast along with seventh graders Dominic Hill, Willow Speck and Colton Wood.
“This is the third year in a row that our Middle School team has been made up entirely of newcomers,” Thomas said. “Just like the last two years, they have been impressive to watch.”
During the competition, each team has two challenges to complete in a time window that was reduced four hours this season. There is a Network Security Challenge that takes place in three or four different operating systems including Windows, Windows Server and Linux. There is also a Cisco Networking Challenge that consists of an online quiz and a virtual networking exercise.
All rounds of competition, except for the National Finals Competition, take place online. The Garrett CyberPatriot program is fully funded by Chapter 143 of the Air & Space Forces Association from Fort Wayne.
“Chapter 143 is the best sponsor anyone could ask for,” Thomas said. “They brought this program to GKB Schools over a decade ago and our students have gone on to careers in computer science and cybersecurity because of it. CyberPatriot has been a blessing to this community and Chapter 143 is to thank for it.”
One of the success stories from the CyberPatriot program at GKB Schools has been current team mentors Nicholas Yoder and Nick Molargik. Both are Garrett graduates and alumni of the GHS CyberPatriot program.
“We would not be where we are today without our team mentors,” Thomas said. “We are so fortunate to have them as part of our program. They work so well with our students and provide real world knowledge that is unmatched.”
Garrett MS CyberPatriot (L-R): Team Mentor Nick Yoder, Willow Speck, Dominic Hill, Kylie Bergman, Owen Fast, Colton Wood, Team Mentor Nick Molargik
Garrett HS CyberPatriot (L-R): Team Coach Bill Thomas, Dante Maslin, Logan Colgan, Brayson Heltsley, Mahlan Dircksen, Sydney Suelzer, Kamerin Goss
