BATON ROUGE - When LSU junior Zedric Thomasstepped onto the long jump runway for Friday's competition at the Purple Tiger Invitational, the last thought running through his mind was that his name would soon be mentioned among the favorites to win All-America honors in the event at the 2010 NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships. After all, Thomas signed with LSU three years ago as one of the nation's premier triple jump recruits with the long jump serving as his secondary event throughout his collegiate career. He also battled through an injury plagued sophomore season in 2009 in which his indoor season came to a sudden end after tearing the meniscus in his left knee during the triple jump competition in LSU's third meet of the season at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational in early February. Although he recovered in time to participate in both the long jump and triple jump at the NCAA Mideast Regional during the outdoor season, Thomas was shut out of the NCAA Championships in 2009. But Thomas wasted no time in making his mark on the 2010 season as he shattered his own personal best with an NCAA automatic qualifying jump of 26 feet, 3 inches on his second attempt to take the event title and secure his spot in the NCAA Indoor Championships to be held March 12-13 in Fayetteville, Ark. This will be his first career appearance at the indoor national meet. In fact, Thomas bettered his personal record twice during the competition as he opened with a jump of 25-3 ¼ before soaring 26-3 on his second attempt. He entered the meet with a modest PR of 24-10. "I surprised myself today jumping 26 feet. I didn't see that coming at all," Thomas said. "Last year didn't really go as well as I had planned, so that's just extra motivation for me going into this year. My goal is to score at the national meet in both jumps to help my team." With his performance, Thomas is the nation's No. 1-ranked long jumper on the young season and vaulted himself into the No. 6 spot on LSU's all-time indoor performance list. Fellow junior Walter Henning also showed just why he is a NCAA title contender in the 35-pound weight throw with his performance in the first event of this year's Purple Tiger Invitational. Henning unleashed a NCAA automatic qualifying mark of his own at 71 feet, 4 ¾ inches on his first attempt of the competition to win the event crown by a comfortable margin over the rest of the field. Henning, who earned All-America honors with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships a year ago, became the nation's No. 2 performer following LSU's season opener. A junior from Kings Park, N.Y., Henning said he was surprised with his performance on Friday afternoon considering he has not worked with the implement in training as much as a year ago. "I'm pretty surprised I threw that far today considering where I am with my training," Henning said. "We are still going four days a week with some heavy lifting and haven't really thrown the weight as much this year as we did at the same time last year. It's just a little change in our training this year. We'll scale back the lifting over the next couple of weeks and work more with throwing the implement. We all should start showing major improvement each week. "My No. 1 goal this year is to score 10 points at nationals and help my team as much as I can. Now that I know I'm in the NCAA meet, I can now focus on improving with each competition." While Thomas and Henning led the Tigers in the field events, sophomore hurdler Barrett Nugent enjoyed a record-setting performance on the track to take the title in the 60-meter hurdles. Nugent, who was an NCAA finalist in the 110-meter hurdles as a freshman a year ago, established a new facility record at the Carl Maddox Field House with a personal-best time of 7.74 seconds in the prelims of the 60 hurdles. He went on to win the event title with an impressive time of 7.76 in the final and establish himself as an All-America contender this season. Nugent's time of 7.74 breaks the previous Carl Maddox Field House record of 7.77 set by Alabama's Ron Bramlett in 2000 and moves him into the No. 3 spot on LSU's all-time performance list in the event. Six other LSU athletes enjoyed NCAA provisional qualifying performances on Friday at the Purple Tiger Invitational. Freshman Damar Forbes finished runner-up to Thomas in the long jump with a personal best of 24-11 ¾, while sophomore Michael Lauro was the third-place finisher in the weight throw with a mark of 65-5 ½ and freshman Rynell Parson clocked a time of 6.69 in the prelims of the 60-meter dash. For the Lady Tigers, sophomore All-American Rachel Laurent captured the pole vault title with a mark of 13-5 ¼, while freshman Takeia Pinckney won the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.40 in the final. Senior Katelyn Rodrigue finished runner-up to Laurent in the pole vault with a provisional clearance of 13-1 ½. Sophomore Samia Stokes just missed earning an NCAA provisional qualifying mark of her own in the 20-pound weight throw as she won the event crown with a new PR and the No. 2 mark in program history at 60-8 ¾. "This was a good first step for both of our teams, but we've got to really show improvement each time we go out and compete," said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. "Even though we didn't ask our athletes to do too much in our first meet, we had some really outstanding performances today. We are finding out things about our athletes as competitors and how well they compete early in the season."