West Point Cadet Team Places Fifth
The team of West Point graduates CPT James “Tyler” Mitchiner ’20 and 1LT George Madden ’21 from the 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia, finished first in this year’s Best Sapper competition. Coming off CPT Matthew Cushing’s ’17 back-to-back wins in 2024 and 2023 with his teammate CPT Joseph Palazini of the 101st Airborne, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, this marks the third consecutive year a West Point graduate has been a part of a Best Sapper winning team.
The 18th Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers Best Sapper Competition ran from April 25-29, 2025, at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. After making it through an application process, 35 of the best Engineer teams from across the U.S. Army, including West Point Class of 2025 Cadets Samuel Dickerson and Isaiah McNeilly—who finished fifth in the competition—with 20 teams finishing on day four.
The four-day challenge showcases the many capabilities of the Army’s combat engineers, commonly called Sappers. Competitors compete in physical tasks in addition to being tested on more than 20 tasks carefully designed to allow only the best of the best to prove they have the expertise, stamina and fortitude to earn the title of Best Sapper.
The competition began in 2005 as a means for service members to show off their skills and showcases the Army’s elite soldiers in combat engineering military occupation specialties challenging competitors physically and mentally to determine the next “Best Sapper” team.
