KATHARINE Streatfield's return to fitness has been one of the welcome surprises of the new track and field season for Team Southampton Athletics Club.

As a mere 17-year-old, the Chandler's Ford girl powered up the triple jump rankings with 12.17 metres personal best, earning herself a Scottish senior call-up.

But a combination of university work - she got a 2.1 law degree at Cambridge - and ill-timed injuries means she disappeared off the scene almost as quickly as she emerged.

Now doing a masters degree in commercial law in Birmingham, Streatfield is based in the Midlands where she is being coached by Commonwealth bronze medallist Aston Moore.

Her heart, however, still belongs to Hampshire and she bounced back with a vengeance at the County Championships last Sunday, where she won the senior women's title with personal/Championship best of 12.20.

"I knew something good would happen today and either I'd jump well or Saints would win," she smiled.

Sadly for the St Mary's faithful, it was the former rather than the latter, but her return to form and fitness spells good news for those other wearers of red and white stripes - Team Southampton.

Streatfield, a member of the old Southampton City club, said: "It's great that Southampton and Team Solent have joined together. This was my first competition for Team Southampton, so it looks as if they've brought me luck!

"This is my first proper season back since 2001. First I had a bone spur removed and then I got a stress fracture. I was out for the whole of 2002 and only competed once, in a Varsity match, in 2003. Last year I did a bit more, including a Scotland under-23 match, but I was busy doing my university finals."

Streatfield is due to finish her masters degree in September and is already enrolled on a course in London to train to be a barrister.

"It's a four-day-a-week course, so hopefully it will leave me time to go to Birmingham to train," she said. "At Cambridge there were no coaches and when I first met Aston (Moore) he couldn't believe I didn't have a coach. His technical sessions have really helped."

After competing in the Inter-Counties later this month, Streatfield's goal is to make the under-23 and senior AAAs.

"Ashia Hansen and Michelle Griffith are both injured at the moment, so the event is wide open," she said.

Undisputed star of the women's field events at Portsmouth was Channel Islander Lauren Therin, who won the under-20 javelin, discus and shot - all with championship bests.

Winchester & District all-rounder Emma Bucket was a multi-medallist in the under-13 girls' category, topping the 70m hurdles, long jump, high jump and 200m and finishing third in the 1,500m and javelin.

Her high jump (1.50) and 70m hurdles (11.90) were both championship bests - a fitting present for her 12th birthday last Saturday.

Winchester provided the main protagonists for what is traditionally the blue riband event of athletics - the senior men's 100m.

With Basingstoke's 200m champion Robert Tobin sitting out the shorter sprint, it became a straight dual between Ben Ellis - just back from Australia where he has been training with the Aussies' Olympic sprint squad - and clubmate Dean Showler-Davis.

It was Showler-Davis who started the quicker, leading up to 60m, but Ellis drew neck and neck in the last few strides and dipped to victory in 10.94sec.

Louis Sellers, another of Winchester's pedigree stable of sprinters, won the under-20 400m in an impressive 48.14 seconds - faster than any senior could manage. He still has a way to go, however, to beat Roger Black's best under-20 mark of 47.5 set back in 1985.

For the under-13 boys, Mountbatten School's Bradley Awuah-Peasah clinched long jump gold with a wind-assisted 4.72 jump, but his star turn was the 200m where he bettered Cephas Howard's 1989 championship best with a sizzling 25.69 heat run.

Shirley girl Louise Webb wore her Team Solent shirt with pride to notch an under-15 girls' 800/1,500m double - the latter in a championship best of 4.43.07.

Pick of the New Forest Juniors were Hayley Pointer and Charlotte Bates, who pulled off a one-two in the under-17 women's 3,000m. Clubmate Tiffany Markham, this year's Hampshire under-15 multi-events champion, headed the 75m hurdles in 12.37.