PCHS seniors, Brody Scheirberg, left, and Aiden Kriessler are decked out in defense gear for Senior Assassin. (Submitted photo)
BY SHERI TRUSTY
PORT CLINTON – Local residents are accustomed to seeing people in casual summer attire walking through town. On warm days, flipflops and tank tops are the preferred look as residents and tourists travel back and forth from the lake. But usually, swim goggles and floaties don’t leave the beach – unless you’re a Port Clinton High School (PCHS) senior. Then, goggles and floaties are the norm for local shopping trips, walks to a local diner, or, sometimes, even for bed.
Many PCHS seniors are playing Senior Assassin, an app-based game that pits senior against senior in a wild, ongoing, never-know-when-to-expect-your-opponent squirt gun fight. The app randomly assigns participants a target, and they eliminate their target from the game by squirting them with a water gun.
The big catch? A target is safe from elimination if they are wearing goggles and floaties, so some seniors wear them all day long.
“It’s fun, and it’s student-led,” said PCHS senior, Brody Schierberg. “It’s a squirt gun war.”
Schierberg said that players don’t know who is out to get them, so they wear their gear a lot, just in case. Their opponent could show up at any moment, armed and giggling.
“There are two girls in the game who are best friends. They are ride-or-dies, and one of them got the other while she was sleeping,” Schierberg said.
Schierberg’s mother, Amber Gardner, said her home sees a continual flow of her children’s friends coming and going, and no one knows if one of them is after her son.
“The funny thing is, my home is Grand Central Station, so Brody better wear his goggles while he’s sleeping,” Gardner said, laughing.
Schierberg said there are rules to follow, including the requirement that teens can’t enter their targets’ homes without parental permission. Anyone who breaks the rules has a “bounty” on them, meaning that anyone in the game can take them out, not just the person assigned to them.
“If you cheat at all in the game, you are banned or have a bounty. Your goggles don’t work,” Schierberg said.
Participants can earn “power up” abilities in the game, like an immunity shield that protects them for 12 hours.
“They are like superpowers,” Schierberg said.
When a person is eliminated, they can pay $5 to be “revived” so they can reenter the game. Money raised during the game is split. Half goes to the last man standing, and the other half will help fund the senior picnic.
Senior Assassin is not organized by PCHS, nor is it played on campus. It is not limited to PCHS but is a popular senior event across the country. It has been played on and off at PCHS in different forms for decades. Covid put a temporary stop to it, and it was revived last year.
“Last year’s seniors did it, and I couldn’t wait to do it,” Schierberg said.
Like Schierberg, a lot of kids couldn’t wait to spend their last weeks of school attired in swim goggles and floaties. It’s the new – temporary – modern, cool look for spring.