Ogeechee Technical College’s Cybersecurity Club, ARPe-DIEM, continues to climb the national ladder, placing 20th at the 2026 Spring National Cyber League competition, powered by Cyber Skyline.
This year, students from Ogeechee Technical College demonstrated exceptional talent and dedication through their participation in the competition. Students Andrew Mitchell, A.J. Redman, Brandon Parker, Taylor Nelson, Cole Marino, Elizabeth Rector-Hager, and Jorge Parra represented the college with professionalism, determination, and outstanding technical ability throughout the season.
The NCL is one of the largest collegiate cybersecurity competitions in the United States with over 550 colleges and universities participating each year. In OTC’s inaugural participation in Fall of 2024, they placed 97th. Each consecutive NCL, OTC has improved their ranking, this year breaking into the top 20.
“I am beside myself,” said OTC Cybersecurity instructor, Terry Hand. “Placing 20th in the nation demonstrates that our students are competing at an elite level against programs from across the country, including much larger 4-year colleges and universities. Watching these students grow through the National Cyber League competition has been one of the most rewarding experiences as an instructor and advisor.”
The NCL competition provides students with experience in solving real-world cybersecurity challenges and is designed to prepare the next generation of cybersecurity professionals by offering high school and college students a safe, online platform to tackle industry-relevant challenges. Students get to practice identifying hackers from forensic data, penetration testing and auditing vulnerable websites, recover from ransomware attacks, and more.
