On Sept. 17, sophomore media studies major Qaali Ali was crowned the 2026 winner of Wet Bandits, a campus-wide water tag competition put on by SALT’s community relations team.
Over the two weeks of the Colosseum-themed competition, Ali eliminated 12 other players from the game. During the first full day of the game, she got three targets out before her 9 a.m. class. She began by camping around the Webster Commons for over an hour to eliminate Cooper McKee after an early morning meeting. She quickly eliminated RAs Jon Gill and Hailey Dunnington. After that, she decided to go all in and go for most eliminations.
“From then on it was just focusing on figuring out who I had and planning the best way to get them out,” she shared. “I would not have been able to do it without my friends acting as informants and cheering me on!”
She used this momentum to get her through the rest of the game. To continue to stay in the game, Ali would leave her dorm before eliminations could start at 7 am; she would often arrive at her classes one to two hours early. After classes, she would do homework and be in the library until elimination rounds ended at 7 p.m. She now holds the record for most eliminations in SNU history.
Ali was one of the three finalists to play in the finale showdown. The contestants were placed around Centennial Plaza with a puzzle of an AI-generated picture of their target as a gladiator. Once their puzzle was solved, they began to fill their bucket with water from the water source at the center of the plaza. When their bucket was overflowing, the contestant was permitted to start going after their target.
Ali solved the puzzle first; after filling up her bucket, she eliminated Audrey Gruenewald. While she eliminated Gruenwald, Braden McNeill, whom Ali inherited as her target, solved the puzzle and started filling up his bucket.
As the crowd closed in on the final two, Ali began to guard McNill’s bucket to prevent him from being able to eliminate her. After McNeill dodged many attempts, Ali finally made her twelfth elimination and became the winner.
She described the moment as shocking, unexpected, and filled with elation. Ali loved getting to be in a high-stakes situation and get support from others. She shared how she loved that her friends handmade signs with her name and her NSI mentees came to cheer her on.
In the concluding celebration, the gladiator helmet crown was passed to Ali by previous year’s champion junior Colby Howard. Ali said the moment was “iconic.” She received a 43-inch Roku TV for getting the most eliminations and a pair of AirPods Max for being the overall winner.
While the prizes were exciting, Ali said her favorite part of Wet Bandits was the community she built along the way. “Getting to make new friends,” she said. “When it came to planning eliminations and forming alliances, I found myself getting closer to some cool people! I love how Wet Bandits is an opportunity to get to know people better.”
Photo provided by: Abigail Rodriguez