By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LARAYO maintained its usual torrid pace on Thursday night, ensuring it would go into its bye date undefeated with a 404-148 victory over visiting LaVacherie at LARAYO.

The Barracudas (4-0) lead second place Riverlands (3-0) by a half game.

Maggie Trepagnier, Paige Williams, Kelsie Williams, and Francesca Puglia led the way for LARAYO with four individual first place finishes each.

Barracudas coach Michelle Jensen said that what stuck out in her mind was her team’s performance against some of Sun Villa’s toughest age groups — such as the 9 & 10 girls division.

“They’ve got some year round swimmers in that group, which we don’t,” said Jensen. “I didn’t know if we could compete, but we did really well there. We were able to hang in some age groups that I wasn’t sure we could in.”

LARAYO led 139-77 after two events, but drove the nail in the coffin during the breaststroke, an event in which the Barracudas outscored LaVacherie 79-27, a meet-high differential. That doubled up LaVacherie, and LARAYO went on to sweep the relay events.

“(LaVacherie) brought good competition to the table, though they were probably missing a few,” said Jensen.

Emily Brady, Brandon Klibert, Cody Schafer, and Kaile Levatino each took two first place finishes for the Barracudas.

Jackson Jensen, Ben Schiff, Josh Tamplain, Eli Ory, Zoe Zadain, Jordan Jensen, Austin Matherne, Meredith Keating, Dylan Klibert, and Shelby Clement rounded out the LARAYO winners.

Jared Oubre, Harley Smith, Jordan Becnel, Kacie Becnel, Jace Oranier, Chris Reulet, Mason Cazenave, Brent Labat, and Lauren Becnel all took first place honors for LaVacherie.