By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Belle Terre concluded its regular season on Monday night against visiting LaVacherie, falling 371-182 on the River Parish Swim League’s final night before the league invitational that begins July 9 at Sun Villa.

LaVacherie put forth a strong performance from the opening events, rolling up 68 points in the freestyle and 73 in the backstroke to take a 141-75 lead. Belle Terre hung tough in the breaststroke and the butterfly, but LaVacherie pulled away in the relay events, scoring 16 of the 20 races.

Belle Terre’s Gage Alleman and Colby Watkins swept all first place awards in individual events.

Cari Jane Roussel, Tyra Watkins and Jobe Kelly each captured two first place finishes.

Cody McMurry, Maddie Torres, Nick Natal, Mallory Fernandez and Luke Nitschke rounded out first place winners for Belle Terre.

Despite the loss, Piranhas coach Kyle Wilking noted that he’s seen great improvement from his swimmers over his first season as coach.

“They never look at the score of the meet. They swim each race like it’s the one that determines the whole thing,” said Wilking. “And you could see that playing out in the time sheet every week. Times went down consistently. Even if a meet wasn’t close at times, they didn’t perform like they were out of it.

Now, Belle Terre turns its attention to the Invitational.

“We’ll take a deep breath and analyze it,” said Wilking. “As a swimmer, it’s no big deal, you go and do your thing. As a coach, it’s a whole new responsibility.

“I know we’ll swim as hard as we can to finish the summer off on a high note.”