By Corbyn Aquino
They came armed with water guns and strategic alliances, lurking behind cars, diving into bushes, waking up hours early just to get the perfect shot. Here at Delta, Senior Assassin isn’t just a game.
It’s a war.
Senior class president Mackemzie Lipps brought the nationwide game, Senior Assassin, to Delta in hopes of brightening up the end of the school year.
“Everyone kept approaching me about the game, and I thought it would be a fun way to end our high school careers,” Lipps said.
It all started on the app Splashin, where Lipps began the game and invited the entire senior class to join.
Of the 175 seniors, 67 of them jumped in and joined to compete for the reward of a $50 gift card of the champion’s choice.
After signing up for the game, each of the seniors was assigned a bounty, which they had a week to eliminate.
In order to eliminate their opponent, seniors had to shoot their target with a water gun, hit them with a water balloon, or even just dump a bucket of water on them.
The bounties could avoid elimination by wearing swim goggles, which had to be on their eyes. If they weren’t on their eyes, the goggles were useless.
If the seniors did not eliminate their bounty in time, they were removed from the game.
They could track their bounty’s location through the app, which would refresh every 10 minutes unless they bought the premium edition, in which case the location would update constantly.
The seniors were restricted from eliminating people on school grounds, at church, or at their jobs. They were also restricted from going into people’s houses without permission.
As of May 2, seniors Lane Norton and Chris Rench were the last two assassins standing, and Chris had until midnight to eliminate his target.
The night before, on May 1, Lane eliminated his last victim, Hailee Hamilton, by crashing her dinner plans at Puerto Vallarta.
Chris attempted to eliminate Lane before midnight on May 2, while Lane was on the way home from his baseball game against Connersville.
Chris positioned himself on the side of the road just in front of Lane’s house, turned on his blinkers, and pretended to be a roadside worker.
“I knew it was him, so I just kept driving by like I didn’t see him,” Lane said.
Chris didn’t call it quits, though. He stayed out for a bit longer to see if Lane would come out. He eventually did, but Chris still had no chance to eliminate him.
“I guess he just doesn’t like helping people on the side of the road,” Chris said.
Senior Alaina Painter found herself out of the competition early after Cooper Bratton eliminated her.
Cooper accomplished the elimination by contacting Alaina’s cousin, Cole Terry, and setting up a time to try to catch her off guard.
Cooper drove over to Alaina’s house, where Cole was staying in the meantime.
Alaina avoided Cooper’s first attempt at elimination by wearing her goggles, but he wasn’t letting that stop him.
Cooper had his friend, Zane Cline, drive Cooper’s car away. This was to convince Alaina that Cooper had left the scene.
Cole later assisted Cooper by asking Alaina to help him with his dogs back home, so that Alaina would get into his truck.
Little did she know Cooper was hiding in the backseat.
Alaina eventually got in the car without goggles, giving Cooper the perfect chance to hop out of the backseat and take out his target.
“I hate losing, so I kept trying until I got the perfect chance,” Cooper said.
Senior Landon Ritchie accomplished his mission early, also, by eliminating Connor Jenkins.
Landon saw on the Splashin app that Connor was at band practice, so he decided that was the perfect chance for elimination.
“I mean, the opportunity was right in front of me, I couldn’t miss it,” Landon said.
He waited in the parking lot for Connor to leave, then followed him to the gas station.
Landon followed him cautiously and quickly took out his bounty.
