Halley (18), a year 13 pupil at Bayfield High School, made the best of an uphill start that enabled her to maintain a handy lead on a 50-strong field until the handicap nature of the demanding 12.7km race had the field converging in the closing stages, where she had to fight for victory.
Over the early stages, Halley appeared to handle the two hill climbs, either side of Sawyers Bay, to hold a 1min 13sec lead at Roseneath.
Using her endurance style of running to best advantage, she stretched it out to 1min 55sec at St Leonards where the race began to play on her confidence more so than her endurance ability.
Despite those behind her making some ground, Halley still had a handy lead of 1min 34sec at Maia, which she maintained until self-doubt started to play on her mind on the run through Ravensbourne where the chasing field began to quickly eat into her lead.
Among the chasers were first-season harrier Siobham McKinlay (Leith) and James Park (Hill City-University), racing from the 16min 30sec mark, but it was McKinlay who appeared to be making every post a winning post as the field turned from the stadium on to Butts Rd where she overtook a tiring Halley for the lead, while Park too was at full steam and appeared at that stage to be favoured to clinch the title.
However, after a quick stumble, Halley unleashed a telling sprint, first shaking Park from her shoulder and then regaining the lead from McKinlay to race down the finishing chute and break the tape exhausted.
''I have no idea where that came from,'' Halley said of unleashing a sprint finish over the final 100m.
''I gave up when she [McKinlay] passed me. I was nearly in tears when it happened. But I just saw the finish line, gauged how far in front she was and realised she wasn't getting any further ahead so I thought why not try and pass her? It couldn't hurt.''
Halley was surprised when told she was only the fifth female to win overall honours.
''Really? Wow! That's awesome. I'm proud of that. It feels amazing,'' she said.
What made victory even sweeter for Halley was the fact that she had been for a training run over the course a week earlier and struggled to complete the journey.
''It was terrible. I struggled to keep it going,'' she said.
''And today to manage to finish it like that, I'm just blown away.''
Halley, one of the youngest runners to win the trophy is also one of just a handful of runners over the past 112 years to have won the race over the old road between Port Chalmers and Dunedin from the front mark.
The only other women to win overall line honours have been Sue O'Sullivan (Hill City, 1983), Ros Dowland (Caversham, 1985), Kerry Rowley (Caversham, 2010) and Gaya Gnanalingam (Leith, 2011).
Although Park was the first man home, because he was not fully registered with the Otago Centre the men's title went to Geoff Anderson (Caversham), who finished fourth. Anderson's son, Ben, the 2013 Edmond Cup champion, won fastest-time honours, completing the course in 44min 1sec.
In the future champions races, Kyla Smith (Ariki) won the 2.2km girls under-13 title and Campbell Neilson (Caversham) the boy's under-13 title. In the 4.4km under-20 grade, Jonny O'Neill (Hill City-University), won the title and Jessie Murphy (Hill City-University) took the junior women's title.
