CARY, N.C. - Stephanie Jenks defeated all the high school runners in Iowa last year when she won the Class 4A state cross country title as a freshman.

Now the precocious sophomore from Linn-Mar has defeated college runners from the Atlantic Coast Conference at a major meet in Cary, N.C.

Jenks finished ninth overall in the adidas XC Challenge Friday night in a meet that featured runners from Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and East Carolina.

Jenks ran unattached in the Open division, but all the runners competed in the same race at the same time.

Juliet Bottorff, a senior at Duke, won the 5 kilometer race in 16 minutes, 28.9 seconds. Jenks placed ninth overall in 17:31.0 and was third in the Open division.

Haley Meier of Duke placed 10th overall in 17:31.3, followed by Elizabeth Whelan of North Carolina (17:38.3) and Anima Banks of Duke (17:38.4).

Jenks finished ahead of 38 runners from Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and East Carolina. All but East Carolina are members of the ACC.

Jenks set a personal record for a 5K, topping her previous best of 17:58 by 27 seconds.

Jenks is not running for the Linn-Mar cross country team this season, but she is competing for the Linn-Mar swim team. She flew from North Carolina to Des Moines Saturday morning to join the Lions at the Dowling Catholic Invitational swim meet Saturday afternoon.