BATON ROUGE -- It only took sophomore Walter Henning two throws to put his name in the record books in his LSU debut as he set a school record and Carl Maddox Field House record in the 35-pound weight throw with a mark of 72 feet, 3 ¾ inches Friday at the Purple Tiger Classic. After fouling on his first attempt, Henning stepped back into the circle for his second throw of the competition and unleashed a new personal record, breaking his previous best of 72-3 set in a third place finish at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships a year ago. His NCAA automatic qualifying mark also breaks the previous school record of 69-11 ½ set by Dave Paddison in 1994 and moves him into the No. 2 spot on the NCAA’s descending order list. Henning is among the national title contenders in the men’s weight throw as he is the nation’s top returning finisher from the NCAA Championships in 2008. His third-place showing at the NCAA meet earned him All-America honors during his true freshman season at North Carolina. “I’m happy with the start. One of my goals today was to get an automatic mark, and now I can throw the rest of the season knowing I’m going to the NCAA meet,” Henning said. “I was very excited to finally make my LSU debut. I thought it was a good throw, but not a great throw. There is definitely still a lot of work to do. I don’t think this is where I’m going to be.” LSU head coach Dennis Shaver believes that Henning’s contribution in the field events will be an important one if the Tigers hope to contend for a national championship this season. “When you add a guy like Walter Henning, that gives our men’s team an added punch in an event where we’ve never really scored in the past at the NCAA meet,” Shaver said. “He’s going to play a big role in our success this year, and I’m really pleased with his performance today.” While Henning led the Tigers in the field, it was junior Trindon Holliday leading the squad on the track as the two-sport standout opened the season with a time of 6.66 in the 60-meter dash to earn a provisional qualifying time for the NCAA Championships. After running a blistering 6.67 in the preliminary round, Holliday finished his day with the fastest semifinal time in the field at 6.66. Holliday, who elected not to run in the final on Friday night, is also an NCAA title contender with the Tigers after finishing runner-up to teammate Richard Thompson in the national final last year. His time of 6.66 matches the third-fastest time in the NCAA to this point in the season. “Coach Shaver wanted me to just do one round to see how I feel. I felt really good when I ran the prelim, so I told him I wanted to run in the semis,” Holliday said. “I was actually kind of shocked that I ran 6.67 in the prelim because I think I opened at 6.72 last year. I feel faster than I did at the same time last year. I started out faster today and should be ready to go.” Sophomore Zedric Thomas also recorded an NCAA provisional qualifying mark for the Tigers on Friday as he set a new overall personal best of 24-10 to place second in the men’s long jump. The Lady Tigers picked up a pair of NCAA provisional qualifiers in their season opener as senior Andrea Linton won the long jump title with a mark of 20-3, while junior Katelyn Rodrigue won the pole vault title with a season-opening clearance of 12-11 ½. While LSU featured one automatic qualifier and four provisional qualifiers for the NCAA meet in its season opener, seven other athletes set personal bests on Friday. The Tigers swept the top three spots in the weight throw as Rabun Fox (63-8 ¾) took second and Michael Lauro (62-8 ½) placed third. Chris Bless (53-5 ½) and Ross Roubion (52-2 ¾) also set personal bests in the event. Sophomore Gabriel Mvumvure opened the season with a personal best of 6.79 in the 60 meters to finish second in the event, while Marcus McGehee won the pole vault with an overall best of 16-4 ¾. Sophomore Kyle Rose also set an indoor personal best in the pole vault with a mark of 15-11. “I felt like everybody got in there and competed very well for their first time out,” Shaver said. “I am especially pleased with the performances of those like Andrea Linton and Zedric Thomas because they had provisional marks in what is probably their secondary event. I think that speaks very well of where they are at this stage of the game.” “We’ll find out a lot more about our team next week when we have more people open up in a big-time competition. Overall, it was a good opener for us and we’ll go from here.” The Tigers and Lady Tigers will go on the road for the first time next weekend as they head to the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium in College Station, Texas, to compete in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge on Jan. 31. Texas A&M will host to the event that also welcomes Florida, Ole Miss, Missouri and Texas to the site of the 2009 NCAA Indoor Championships scheduled for March 13-14.