Caversham claimed the Lovelock Relays' senior women's title on Saturday at the University Oval. The win denied HCU a fifth consecutive senior double in the event.
Leihana Reeves recorded the fastest individual time of the women's race in the opening lap. Her 5min 21sec gave Caversham a 4sec lead over Ariki after the first 1500m.
Julie Edmunds, Kirsty Eyles and Tamara Reeves held off the challenge to finish the 4x1500m race in 22min 46sec.
Leith's 23min 05sec left it in second, while Ariki finished third in 23min 26sec and a young HCU team followed in fourth.
HCU continued the trend of recent years in the senior men's race, however. Its classy first team finished the 6x1500m race in 26min 29sec to finish 37sec ahead of a strong Leith team.
Last year's Otago crosscountry champion Russell Green clocked the team's fastest individual time of 4min 17sec, closing a dominant display.
Caden Shields and Logan Slee also had impressive runs for HCU, both at 4min 21sec. But it was the consistency across the board that won the race for HCU.
Its slowest time of 4min 33sec was only beaten by three of the 36 runners in the six other teams.
All three of those came from Leith, which held second throughout.
Its final runner, Janus Staufenburg, clocked a rapid 4min 05sec to claim the fastest time of the day.
But the 49sec gap was far too much for one person to haul in.
He crossed to give Leith second in 27min 06sec, while HCU's second team was third in 29min 17sec.
