Greenbrier High School’s cyber teams took first and third places Tuesday in a multi-state competition held at the Georgia Cyber Center in Augusta.
The battle involved 42 teams from Georgia and South Carolina solving increasingly difficult problems that deal with computer security and hacking. About 100 of the 160 students competed at the center’s downtown Augusta facility. The other teams competed online for the four-hour game.
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Greenbrier’s team is coached by Ty Abero, a retired Army Signal officer and the school’s wrestling coach. His philosophy is hard work and year-round practice. He pushes the students to play “capture the flag” cyber games over and over.
“There’s a program called Cyber Start America. I make all of them at least get familiar with it. Some of them they just take off with it. Three of them over there have already earned scholarships,” Abero said moments after his two teams, the Greenbrier High School Phishing team and Zero Cool team took first and third respectively.
“I might be working for them pretty soon. Bright, incredibly bright futures,” Abero said.
The school’s top cyber athlete is Max Jeremski, a sophomore. He said of the constant drilling and practice games: “It paid off.”
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The other teammates are Thaniel Raynack, Tiger Wang and Leland Green. A small number of middle schools competed as well and the Augusta Preparatory Day School in Martinez took first place in the middle school competition.
The win got the team recognition from Brig. Gen. Paul Stanton, the commanding general of Fort Gordon. The Army base is home to the Cyber Center of Excellence, the Army Cyber headquarters and the National Security Agency-Georgia facility.
“I appreciate your willingness to dedicate yourself to really hard problems,” Stanton told the students. “When we talk about middle schoolers working on reverse engineering, we’re talking about the folks that we need to ensure the security of our nation well into the future.”
Joshua B. Good is a staff reporter covering Columbia County and military/veterans’ issues for The Augusta Press. Reach him at joshua@theaugustapress.com
