Hill City-University announced it will be a force to reckon with on the local harrier scene for some time, when it won both senior titles at the cross-country relays on Saturday.
With an average age of just 20 in both teams, Hill City-University teams proved results in the recent Lovelock Relays were no one-off.
The dark clouds over the Dunedin Pony Club grounds, combined with testing underfoot conditions, seemed of little consequence to the runners.
Kick-starting the club's success were Hannah Adamson, Katrina Andrews, Mary Gray and Deborah Lynch, who battled a motivated Ariki team to clinch the senior women's title in a come-from-behind victory.
Hanna English got her Ariki team away to a flying start, presenting Bridget Thompson with a 24sec lead for the start of the second leg.
Both Thompson and Ariki's third runner, Charlotte Cahill, held their own against the all-round strength of Hill City-University. But as soon as Lynch took the baton for the final leg, it was game over for Ariki.
Lynch wasted little time in running down a 12sec deficit to take the lead and complement a solid performance put in by Adamson, Andrews and Gray on the earlier legs.
Lynch, whose younger sister, Susannah, was running the final leg for the Hill City-University No 2 team, broke the tape in 33min 53sec, clocking second-fastest individual time on the 2000m circuit of 8min 14sec, after English had posted 7min 54sec on the first leg.
''I didn't want to let my team down,'' Lynch said.
''But really I ended up running scared of my sister.''
As darkness descended, the senior men's 4 x 2750m race unfolded with plenty of drama.
Hill City-University's Joe Beamish and Ariki's Stafford Thompson turned it into a two-way contest from the start.
Beamish snatched a 7sec advantage at the first change. But a blistering turn of pace from Nathan Baxter enabled him to gain fastest time, a slick 9min 14sec, handing Ariki a massive 1min 11sec lead for Dave Catherwood to take into the third leg.
However, the weather gods tested the will of the two teams vying for victory, unleashing a torrent of rain, hail and snow that took its toll on Catherwood.
''It felt like sticking your head in a deep freeze,'' Catherwood said.
He commented that over the first part of the course he was running head on into the weather.
''You could hardly breathe. The air was so cold and the hail ... I had my head down and was struggling to get air in.''
Catherwood always seems to draw the short straw for the game-changing stages. Last year, it was his run in the Lovelock Relay. But on Saturday, he was full of praise for Josh Campbell, who overhauled the massive deficit to regain the lead for Hill City-University.
Campbell handed Andrew Pohl a 6sec advantage over Ariki on the final leg. But with 2000m remaining, Pohl had been caught, and was locked in a stride-for-stride battle with Ariki's Anthony Trainor.
Only over the final stages was Pohl able to break away from Trainor and bring his team home victorious in 39min 36sec, 34sec clear of Trainor's team, Ariki. Defending champion Caversham was third.
Hill City, before it amalgamated with University, last won the senior men's title in 1993. University won in 1994 and 2006.
