All’s fair in love and war…right?

Tension was high between juniors and sophomores last Friday at WCHS’ first Westco Wave: The Dive-In Experience.

The event took place at WCUSD Aquatics Center and included WCHS’ traditional Penny War between the classes, a competition where each class collects as many pennies as they can, this time to be donated to WCHS Aquatics. Each class had their own bucket with pennies equaling positive points and silver coins and bills equaling negative points. The goal is to put as many pennies into your own class bucket and as many silver coins or bills into other classes’ buckets. The class with the most pennies earns spirit points. 

Seniors teamed up with juniors to help them put as many negative points into the sophomores’ bucket to lower their chances of winning. This was due to sophomores being ahead of juniors in spirit points. Both the seniors and juniors agreed not to put any silver coins or bills into each other’s buckets. 

Junior class President Lina Shahsavari shared how the rivalry between the two classes played a big factor in Penny Wars. “When you least expected it, there was a slip of a bill in someone’s bucket and that’s when the other class would put their silver coins into the other’s bucket; that’s what made it fun,” she said. 

“The sabotage was real,” Shahsavari added. “We had put a $20 bill into the sophomore bucket and they also put one into ours and that just topped it off.” 

“I had got there and the tension was already high,” sophomore Samantha Vuong said. Her class made an effort but the juniors were insistent on winning. “The juniors did pick on us more, so it did raise the tension with my class against the upperclassmen.”

Results of the Penny Wars, due to come out this week or next, will surely add to the existing rivalry between juniors and sophomores.