A BREAKTHROUGH run by City of Salisbury’s Faye Parker at the hotly contested Netley 10k road race yielded her best ever performance and her first win in the Hampshire league series, consolidating her sequence of improving results this season.

In summerlike conditions by Southampton Water, she set a cracking pace in the ladies’ event and by the finish had built a 20sec lead over the highly regarded Erica Fogg of New Forest Runners. Faye’s time of 39min 4sec was a big personal best and may prove the key to a place in the final league table’s top three.

A neck-and-neck sprint to the line saw Katherine Bleakley’s 44.08 just get the better of Sally Greenslade (44.10) to complete a strong Salisbury team.

Stuart Holloway led the men’s defence of their league hopes and his 34.30 was good enough for sixth place against a flying 32.54 from Stubbington’s Daniel O’Boyle. But despite a fine 35.34 and tenth spot for Michael Brewster, Salisbury were outshone by rivals Stubbington who filled three further places ahead of him.

Phil Smith was next best with 40.08, followed by Nick Willetts 43.31, Sarah Brewster 45.13, Mel Holloway 46.25, Craig Murphy 46.26, John Ruskin 46.33, Andy Robbins 49.59, Melenie Murphy 50.15, Rod Smith 51.18, Jane Whiteley 52.21, Liz Roberts 52.23 and Colin Martin 58.04.

Austen Lane was the star of Salisbury’s Southern Athletics League sunny home fixture, scorching his way to third in the UK age group rankings when clocking a superb 22.1sec in the under 17s 200m. He mirrored that with an equally impressive 11sec in the 100m, putting him fifth in the UK at that distance too.

With Abbey Babatunde, Trevor Cobs-Alexanderson and Andrew Pryde, Lane went on to set a new club mark of 44.2sec in the 4x100m relay.

Similar success marked the 4x400m relay, Callum McTaggart, Gio Downie, Charlie Britten and Richard Holt clocking 3:29.4sec.

Another divisional record fell to Tom Cummings who won the 3,000m steeplechase in 9:42.4sec.

Among other winners, Ben Brewster took the 3,000m in 9:01.6sec, Richard Holt the triple jump, Hamish Mundell the 400m hurdles, Aiden Holmes the javelin, Darren Clissold the pole vault, Alex Mundell the 1500m and Alice Smith the 100m.

These performances helped Salisbury to a wellearned second place on the day behind Plymouth, improving their chances of promotion to Division 2.