EUGENE, Ore. – With the NCAA Indoor title in the 35-pound weight throw already under his belt this season, LSU junior Walter Henning arrived at Hayward Field on Friday afternoon with one goal in mind to see his hand raised as the NCAA Outdoor champion in the hammer throw at the end of the third day of competition at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
And Henning did just that in dramatic fashion as he unleashed his best throw of the afternoon on his sixth and final attempt of the final to solidify his position as the most dominant thrower in the NCAA in 2010.
By adding 10 points to LSU’s team total, Henning helped the Tigers finish in a tie for fourth place overall at the end of Friday’s action with a total of 20 points through three days of competition.
After trailing Virginia Tech’s Alexander Ziegler throughout the competition with a best throw of 235 feet, 6 inches through five rounds, Henning took four turns and let the hammer fly 238-10 on his final throw to take the lead. Ziegler, who took an early lead with a mark of 237-5 in the prelims, improved to 237-7 with his final attempt but finished in second place behind Henning.
Henning held his emotions in check after his final throw as he awaited the official mark to flash across the indicator board situated near the competitors along the right side of the throws field.
But a jubilant Henning raised his arms in celebration when he saw the No. 1 pop up next to his name with the mark of “72.79” and “238-10” light up in bright numerals.
“It’s kind of hard to tell where it lands when you’re out at those kind of distances,” Henning said. “You can’t really tell if it’s 68 or 80 meters. You really have no idea how far it is until it shows up on the board. I kind of thought it was somewhere around the 71-meter range but I didn’t think it was that far. I was very happy where it was. I think I showed that when it came up on the board.”
Henning continues to make history as the most decorated thrower in modern history of the LSU track and field program as he becomes the first LSU Tiger to be crowned NCAA hammer throw champion since the event was first contested at the NCAA Championships way back in 1921.
He also becomes the first collegiate athlete to complete the NCAA title sweep of the weight throw and the hammer throw in the same season since Virginia Tech’s Spyridon Jullien accomplished the feat in 2006.
With his performance on Friday afternoon, Henning earned his fifth career All-American honor, including his fourth in an LSU uniform. He wrapped up a 2010 season in which he won 12 of 13 events in which he entered in the weight throw and hammer throw, including a clean sweep of NCAA and SEC crowns in his specialty. His personal bests were set at 78-1 in the weight and 239-5 in the hammer in 2010.
“I got fourth indoor and second outdoor last year, and that is the only thing I kept saying to myself during the day today. ‘Do you really want to get second again?’ I didn’t,” Henning said. “My goal coming in was to be the NCAA champion. I did what I had to do today to reach that goal. I’m very happy.”
Henning said he also received some additional words of encouragement from teammate Josh Dominguez, who scored eight points with an NCAA runner-up finish in the pole vault the night before.
“There was a lot of pressure,” Henning said of his last throw. “There were plenty of LSU fans out there and all of my teammates were out there, so I didn’t want to let them down. Josh Dominguez told me that I couldn’t let him outdo me. So, there you go Josh, I didn’t let you outdo me.”
The Lady Tigers lined up in two track finals during Friday’s action with freshman Takeia Pinckney in the 100-meter dash and seniors LaTavia Thomas and Kayann Thompson in the 800-meter run.
In her NCAA Championships debut, Pinckney earned All-America honors and scored five points for LSU with a fourth-place finish the women’s 100-meter final as she sprinted to the finish line with a wind-aided clocking of 11.23 seconds that was run with a strong tailwind of 2.8 meters per second.
Pinckney has now earned a pair of All-America honors during her freshman campaign as she placed sixth in the 60-meter final at the NCAA Indoor Championships back in March. She has an opportunity to earn a third All-America honor this season as she is expected to run the third leg of the Lady Tigers’ 4×100 relay that will line up in the national final on Saturday at 12:03 p.m. CDT.
Thomas and Thompson followed Pinckney’s performance by scoring seven more points for the women as they finished in third place and eighth place, respectively, in the 800-meter final.
Thomas became an All-American for the 11th time in her distinguished career as one of the all-time greats at LSU as she clocked 2 minutes, 3.64 seconds to score six points with a third-place finish. Thomas won a sixth career All-America certificate in the 800 meters with her performance. Thompson earned the first of her career as she followed in eighth place with a time of 2:07.15.
The duo will team together on the third and fourth legs of LSU’s 4×400-meter relay team that will step on the track in the final women’s event of this year’s NCAA Championships on Saturday at 1:40 p.m. CDT.
The Lady Tigers have now scored 16 points through three days of competition as they currently sit in a tie for seventh place in the team standings with 13 of 21 events scored. They will compete with three chances to score on Saturday and finish among the nation’s elite once again this season.
In other field event action on Friday, sophomore Michael Lauro joined Henning in the men’s hammer and earned a 12th-place finish in the competition with a top throw of 209-5. Fellow sophomore Rachel Laurent finished in 11th place in the women’s pole vault with a clearance at 13-5 ½.
“We had six scoring opportunities coming into today, and we made just about all of them count for us this afternoon,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “What else can you say about Walter Henning? The guy is just a tremendous competitor. He’s a guy you can never count out, and he showed that again today with a big one on his last throw. The great ones are able to get it done when it’s all on the line.
“I thought Takeia ran a great race today and stepped up big for us in her first final. I’m also very proud of LaTavia and Kayann for competing the way they did in their last collegiate 800 as seniors. We needed the 12 points they scored for us today on the women’s side.”
LSU continues the competition at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Saturday as the field events begin at 11:30 a.m. CDT followed by the first track events at 12:03 p.m. All fans can access live results for the meet courtesy of Flash Results by logging on to www.flashresults.com.
Saturday’s championship finale at historic Hayward Field is also scheduled for a live television broadcast on CBS from 12-2 p.m. CDT, marking the fifth-straight year the meet has aired on live network TV.
Fans can also find up-to-the-minute and behind-the-scenes coverage of the Tigers and Lady Tigers by following @LSUTrackField on Twitter and by becoming a fan of the official LSU Track & Field page on Facebook. Results, photos and videos will be posted as they become available.