BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU diver Montserrat Gutierrez Lavenant and LSU swimmer Joel Thompson walked across the stage Friday morning, earning their undergraduate degrees in sports administration inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Gutierrez Lavenant, a native of Tijuana, Mexico, has been a member of the swimming and diving program since 2020. Since then, she has excelled and improved in each season that followed. In 2023, Lavenant claimed second at the NCAA Championships on platform and won the SEC title on platform.
During her senior season, she matched and exceeded her success from the year prior by finishing on the podium in each event at the SEC meet and claiming another silver medal on platform at NCAAs. At the SEC Championships, she was the champion on the three-meter springboard, silver medalist on platform, and bronze medalist on the one-meter springboard.
Gutierrez Lavenant was named the SEC Female Freshman Diver of the Year in 2021 and earned the SEC Female Diver of the Year distinction in 2024.
Thompson, a native of Brighton, England, has been a mainstay and leader in the program for four years. He competed primarily in the breaststroke and individual medley events. Thompson finished his swimming career with all his personal bests during the Rick Bishop era. He is a three-year letterman at LSU.