Water guns. Cyberstalking. Waiting outside somebody’s house for hours. Senior Soakers, also known as Senior Assassins, is a game that begins around March of senior year where teams of two Sequoia seniors try to shoot their designated target team with water guns within a week-long round. Succeed and you move on to the next round. Fail or get shot yourself and you are eliminated. The prize: around $500 and the ultimate bragging rights.
This year, over 75 teams (150 people) entered the player pool to vie for the crown. Here are just a few of their stories.
The Big Boys almost squirt a random lady
“My partner Deven looked up the address of our targets and we woke up at 6 a.m. to go to their house. We just sat there for a cool two hours before school started. I was behind a bush right next to the door and Deven decided to hide out in front of the car.
“When it was starting to get close to school hours, we heard some keys jingle on the doorknob, and we thought, ‘Alright, we’re ready.’ I had my phone ready and I had my water gun, only for an old lady to come out with her work bag. She must’ve been so scared because I was right behind a bush with my water gun pointed at her and some random kid was in front of her car with another water gun. She was just frozen. And she said, ‘Can I help you guys?’ I said, ‘We’re so sorry, we’re playing this game,’ and she said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s okay.’ We just felt so bad. I literally almost squirted her, my water gun was already squeezed.
“We got back in the car and we were late to school, so we thought, ‘We’ll try again after school.’ Throughout the day, Deven looked up another address, which was on the other side of the city.
“We got to that one. We stayed there another two hours. A FedEx driver was passing by and we said, ‘Hey, can you knock on their door and we’ll hide behind the house or near some bushes.’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ He knocked on the door. Nobody comes out. So he leaves and we go back in the car and stay another hour.
“Before we called it quits, we said, ‘We’ll just go ring the doorbell,’ so Deven hid around the house and I walked to the doorbell—it was a Ring camera. I rang it and I hid so that it wouldn’t see me. It said, ‘We’re not interested, please leave.’ I didn’t leave, I just went to where Deven was hiding. After 10 minutes of just standing there—and there were cameras around the house too—we left.
“Then our target hit me up and she said, ‘My neighbor called the cops because you were at the wrong house again.’ It was another wrong address. We were at the neighbor’s house and they got scared because it looked like we were trying to break in and enter with two water guns. I would’ve called the cops too if I didn’t know what was going on. I felt so bad.
“[The cops] got the whole situation handled. They talked with the neighbors and said it was a game. The neighbors were cool, we are just not allowed back there.”
– Janmarco Flores, senior and member of team “The Big Boys” with Deven Hennelly
POG delivers a special package to their targets
“This was at 9 p.m., the second to last day before the round ended. I had the full UPS costume: the UPS shirt, which I think is still in use right now, and an old-school UPS hat. I had a package, which I put bricks in just to give it some weight. I also had a clipboard with a UPS customer form. When I found the right house, I put the package down, I took a really deep breath and then I rang the doorbell. I waited for a couple of seconds and then I heard footsteps coming. I had my right hand behind my jacket, which was where my water gun was. Unfortunately, it was her mom first, so I said, ‘I have a package for Chelsea Mendoza.’ She said, ‘That’s my daughter.’ And then I said, ‘I’m gonna need her signature.’ She went to get her daughter.
“My heart was pounding. It only lasted like 10 seconds, but I was just waiting and waiting. Then Chelsea finally showed up to the door and I said, ‘I have a package for Chelsea Mendoza. Can you sign right here?’ And then I pulled out my water gun and said, ‘Right here,’ and I sprayed her.
“I was thinking about that strategy for three days in a row, and to see it actually work was pretty cool. I wish everyone could see it, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was rejected because the video quality was so bad.”
– Owen Leung, senior and member of team “POG” with Dylan Williams
Identity theft is not a joke to the Crispy Crackers
“I was able to show up at Mikaila Miller’s house and I was nervous. I was psyching myself up to go and I was wearing slides, so I changed my shoes. While I was changing my shoes I saw a car pulling by—it’s her mom. I’m standing there trying to figure out what to do, whether I go, ‘Hey, are you Mikaila’s mom?’ She looks at me. I’m just standing there thinking, ‘I’m not doing anything. I was just playing Wordle or something.’ But I end up walking up close to the door. I was about to knock and she just opened it and said, ‘Yes. What do you want?’ I was so startled.
“Mikaila was out for work. [Her mom] said, ‘Is this for Senior Soakers?’ I’m such a bad liar, so I told her right then and there. But I managed to tell her another lie. I said, ‘My name is Jacob, by the way,’ as I was leaving, and I was making reference to the fact that Jacob Huljev looks somewhat similar, just slightly taller than me—and more handsome.
“I got to school on Monday, and everybody was talking about, ‘Did you get your target?’
“‘No, I didn’t get my target.’
“‘Who’s your target?’
“‘Mikaila.’
“‘No, that was Jacob’s target. What are you talking about?’
“‘Yeah, that was me, actually. I just lied and used somebody else’s name.’
“Eventually, that spread around to Jacob, and I mentioned it to him in biology, and he said, ‘I knew it was you.’”
– Xander Love, senior and member of team “Crispy Crackers” with Logan Dunning