LAPLACE — Monday was the River Parish Swim League’s bye date, allowing an off day for local squads LARAYO and Riverlands to gear up for their final two respective meets of the season.

Both teams headed into the bye with some momentum.

LARAYO appears well on its way to capturing yet another regular season swim championship after going 3-0 against a challenging early season slate of LaVacherie, Riverlands and Sun Villa.

“Our kids are steadily improving,” LARAYO coach Michelle Jensen said. “I’m especially happy with the development of our younger kids. When you look back over the years, one of the reasons we’ve had the success we’ve had is historically, we’re very strong in our youngest age groups, especially the 6 to 8 and unders. We work hard on developing them and getting them ready to swim the backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly early on.”

She said the team will be focused on making a strong final push over the last two meets of the regular season, at Ellington Thursday and Hill Heights Monday.

“In the first half of the season, typically you’re tweaking things and seeing where your strengths are,” Jensen said. “Now, you want to get in the pool and swim as much as possible to have a good finish.”

Riverlands lost its first two meets of the season but bounced back to score a key win over Hill Heights Thursday night.

“We cleaned up some things, and a lot of our kids who had disqualifications earlier in the year eliminated those,” Riverlands coach Lindsey Vicknair said. “It was good for us, not just because of the win but (because) Hill Heights is always a good meet. A lot of our swimmers are friends with swimmers there and it’s always a positive experience.”

Riverlands has had a younger team than usual over the past two seasons, with a number of the team’s older swimmers cycled out after turning 19 (the league’s age cutoff is 18). Last season, in a similar situation, the Stingrays struggled in the regular season before making a strong push to earn second place at the league Invitational.

“We have a lot of new swimmers, which is challenging and exciting at the same time,” Vicknair said. “Sometimes they’ll struggle at the beginning, but the effort is there and success will follow.”

PIRANHA SWIM TEAM, meanwhile, celebrated the 35th anniversary of the first swim meet at Belle Terre on Monday as it hosted Mimosa Park. They did it in style, winning the meet in front of their home fans and alumni.

“We’ve been pretty excited about it,” PST coach Blaine Tatje said. “We invited our alumni out to come celebrate.”

The Piranhas, who are swimming against an independent schedule this season, picked up their first win of the season last week, defeating Southern Yacht club by 40, and the team has been picking up steam.

“I’m really proud of how our team stuck together through some early losses,” Tatje said. “A number of our kids have really emerged this season in relays and have been scoring big points for us.”

PST has one meet remaining this year, which will take place Tuesday at UNO against Jewish Community Center.

“I think we can finish with a strong performance and, hopefully, a victory,” Tatje said. “I’d like to see everyone continue to post their best times and build on what they’ve been doing.”