Looking to build a secure digital future for all generations, Wittenberg University is proud of the work that eight students accomplished during the fall semester, which included competing in the National Cyber League (NCL).
The NCL Fall 2025 season concluded with participation from 9,271 students/players and over 500 faculty/coaches from 510 two- and four-year colleges and universities and 278 high schools from across the United States, representing all 50 states. Wittenberg placed in the Top 100 nationally of all 510 participating colleges and in the Top 50 in the central region. Individually, all of Wittenberg’s participants placed in the top 25.
Wittenberg’s players are currently enrolled in both COMP315 and COMP325, making up two teams named Witt Wired and TigerSec. Both teams contributed to Wittenberg making the cyber power rankings, nationally and regionally. While this is Wittenberg’s third year participating in the competition, it is the first serious participation for the eight students involved.
Witt Wired racked up 2,400 points out of a possible 3,100, with a completion rate of 81.9 percent, placing 136th out of all 4,214 teams participating from colleges and high schools across the nation, landing them in the top three percent. TigerSec finished with 1,530 points, placing 422nd out of 4,214 teams putting them in the top 10 percent.
“In our brief history in this competition, this is by far our best team performance both in terms of points and national ranking,” said Moez Ben Azzouz, director of cybersecurity studies and certification, and a member of the Wittenberg Math and Computer Science Department. “Overall, our participation in the NCL in the fall 2025 season has been a success and a great learning experience for all involved. I am so proud of our students and their achievements. We have done something new this semester to give students the opportunity to practice for the competition and work on weekly hands-on labs that reinforce and support theoretical concepts covered in lectures. We have also provided students with walkthroughs and write-ups of practice challenges and provided hints, demos, and resources to support their learning journey.”
Witt Wired is made up of Jackson Miller, captain, and a member of the class of 2026 from Westerville, Ohio; Quintin Applegate, class of 2026 from Delaware, Ohio; Trenton Carter, class of 2026 from Carmichaels, Pennsylvania; and Matthew Cox, class of 2026 from Springfield, Ohio.
“I decided to participate in the competition because the challenges were relevant and related to what we have learned throughout the cybersecurity course track,” said Miller, who will graduate this upcoming May with degrees in computer science and finance. “Also, solving a problem after working through it, experimenting, and researching felt very rewarding. The hardest part of the competition was the ‘Hard’ difficulty challenges. In any of the categories, whether it be open-source intelligence or web application enumeration, solving any one hard challenge felt like a major accomplishment personally. These competitions will hopefully help in my future career by familiarizing myself with scenarios a penetration tester or cybersecurity analyst deals with in their day-to-day operations. Also, hopefully the score report will help me while applying and interviewing for jobs.”
Team TigerSec includes Lukas Rieben, captain, and class of 2027 from Clayton, Ohio; Jaxin Johnson, class of 2027 from South Vienna, Ohio; Phillip Schlomann, class of 2027 from Galloway, Ohio; and Ilirian Rexhepi, an international student from Vétraz-Monthoux in southeastern France, who is spending one year at Wittenberg as part of his combined bachelor-master degree in computer science at Université Savoie Mont Blanc.
“I participated in the NCL as a part of my class curriculum last spring and was excited to have the opportunity to do it again this year,” said Rieben, who is an information systems and computer science double major with a concentration in cybersecurity, as well as a member of the cross country and track and field teams. “I enjoyed returning and excelling in the challenges even more this year. The hardest part for me was being able to balance my schedule during the weekends of the competitions. To maximize the time spent on the competition, I'd have to bring my computer everywhere – from athletic practices and competitions, my on-campus job, even out to dinner.
“Many jobs ask for cybersecurity capture the flag (CTF) experience on resumes, and being able to include my scores on LinkedIn and on my portfolio will help me stand out from the rest,” he added. “Being able to say I captained a team for Wittenberg and managed students so we could work together effectively is a great example of something I'd have to do in a career as a cybersecurity Security Operations Center (SOC) team leader. I would like to follow in my father's footsteps and become a cybersecurity auditor. I've already had the privilege to work as a governance risk and compliance analyst for a local Springfield business last summer. I'd love to do something similar and continue pursuing my passion for cyber.”
The Tigers, who have been in the NCL for three years, ranked 29th in the central region and 92nd out of 510 colleges participating nationally, leaving many respectable four-year institutions in Ohio and nationally behind. Their power ranking is based on the team competition and is 22nd in the central region and 71st nationally. The power ranking calculation is based on the school’s top performing team, top performing student, and the number of participating students. Wittenberg is at a disadvantage when compared to schools that have participated with more than eight students. In addition to raw rankings, the NCL performs a special calculation to determine a school’s cyber power ranking and lists the Top 50 cyber “power” colleges in the Eastern, Central, and Western regions; and Top 100 nationally; Wittenberg made both lists, Cyber Power Rankings.
The NCL was founded in May 2011 to provide an ongoing virtual training ground for collegiate students to develop, practice, and validate their cybersecurity skills in preparation for further learning, industry certifications, and career readiness.
The Individual Game CTF event took place Oct. 24-26, and the Team Game CTF event took place Nov. 7-9. The games were conducted in real-time for students across the country, and, after the team event, each participant received an NCL scouting report that breaks down their performance in all categories, becoming a powerful assessment tool for participants to use to target skills they can improve upon. Competition events usually run from Friday at 1 p.m. EDT, until Sunday evening, 9 p.m. EDT, and students attempt challenges of various difficulty levels in nine categories.
“We held a launch party on Friday afternoon for each event, where I provided pizza, and cheered on our participants,” Ben Azzouz said. “It was a joy observing all participants as they worked through the various challenges and the interactions and discussions that took place during the team competition. Both teams finished in the top 500 out of 4214 teams. NCL events and rankings are a good thing for students to include on their resumes.”
The NCL scenario-based challenges were designed around performance-based exam objectives of CompTIA certifications and are aligned to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The NCL offers challenges in nine skills categories including the open-source intelligence, cryptography, password cracking, forensics, log analysis, network traffic analysis, scanning and reconnaissance, enumeration and exploitation, and web application exploitation.
In the individual competition, the six students who participated all ranked in the top 25 percent out of 7,874 participants. Wittenberg’s top three performers each placed in the top 10 percent and included Carter, who had 1,885 points and ranked 644th and 92nd in national percentile with a completion rate above 70 percent in six out of the nine categories and greater than 85 percent in four categories. He finished with an overall completion rate of 73.3 percent and an accuracy rate of 67.9 percent.
Rieben finished with 1,795 points and was ranked 721st and in the 91st percentile with an overall completion rate of 71.3 percent, greater than 60 percent in seven out of the nine categories, and above 70 percent in four categories.
Rexhepi finished with 1,720 points, was ranked 795th and in the 90th percentile with an accuracy rate of 74.5 percent and an overall completion rate of 68 percent. He achieved a completion rate above 70 percent in five out of the nine categories. Wittenberg’s remaining participants all scored above 1,000 points, which is a commendable feat.
“The competitions really force you to grow in the moment as the challenges can be very complex, and it may be something you haven't seen before. Therefore, it helps you grow in resourcefulness and being able to use context clues in the challenge to learn bits and pieces that will eventually help you pull it all together,” said Carter, a computer science major with a concentration in cybersecurity, who is also pursuing a minor in business. “I have also found many new tools and resources throughout trying to solve competitions that I will now be able to use forever.
“Our professor actually encouraged us to participate in the NCL, and I am glad he did because it was a great opportunity for me to learn and grow my skills,” Carter added. “The hardest part was the time commitment. With the competition window being so short, you really had to make the most of every second so you could work on completing more challenges. My goal in the future is to obtain a security analyst position that would give me an opportunity to further grow my skills.”
“I am so proud of all these students,” Ben Azzouz said. “The top performing schools incorporate CTF preparation in their curriculum and support out-of-class, intensive CTF training activities typically through a student cybersecurity club. We are still not there in terms of reaching that level of relentless CTF preparation efforts, in and outside the classroom, the kind that can move us farther up the power rankings. However, the adjustments we continue to make have already put Wittenberg University on the map in terms of our cybersecurity program in just three years, and we are gradually improving and competing with schools with larger resources. Our next target is to make the Top 50 in the national cyber power rankings by Fall 2027.”
