No one at Bear Mountain today could remember when, if ever, North Rockland won both the boys and girls cross country Rockland championships. The way they cruised to victory today you’d think they do it every year.

Here are the boys standings:
1. North Rockland 21
2. Suffern 47
3. Pearl River 88

And the girls:
1. North Rockland 37
2. Pearl River 63
3. Tappan Zee 76

Nick Hughes was the boys champion with a 15:19.46. He’d finished second behind Mike Hickey each of the last two years.

Five other Red Raiders placed in the top eight. James Naglieri was second with a 15:44.38. Suffern’s Tyler Frigge was third at 15:51.11.

No one but Suffern and North Rockland placed in the top 10 in boys.

Nanuet’s Megan Young took the girls championship with a 17:38.04. The freshman finished third last year.

Jessica Tobin of Clarkstown South was second with a 18:11.64.

Despite those efforts, the Nanuet and South girls teams finished just fifth and sixth.

Alexis Hatcher (18:25.28) led the victorious Red Raider girls.

Next up is sectionals next Saturday.

With the new league alignment, the old playoff format was scrapped. There will be no pool play this fall. Instead, teams will be seeded tomorrow morning and go right into head-to-head matchups.

The set-up gives top squads a chance to play at home a couple of more times.

“It’s nice to have sectionals on the home court this year instead of having to travel God knows where,” Clarkstown North’s Cat Darling said after her team swept New Rochelle to finish 14-3. “We’re hoping there will be a bunch of people there.”

“We’re very excited,” Katie Westervelt said. “We’re really excited that our first two sectional games will be at home. I think we can go pretty far this year. I think it’s more fun when it’s head to head because you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

It was hard to believe, watching Stephanie Graziano today, that she’s not traditionally a scorer for Ursuline. The way she knifed through the defense, the way she made long runs down the sideline, she seemed as determined to find the net as anyone.

The center middie had a hat trick today against Edgemont — in eight minutes! She tacked on another goal, her fourth, 13 minutes later. Ursuline was up 5-0 at halftime, and won 6-1.

Graziano had just five goals on the season. That’s in 14 games. She nearly doubled that today.

She looked like a natural. She weaved around defenders like they were orange cones. She glided down the field effortlessly. Her second goal was a pinpoint job under the crossbar that demonstrated how accurate her kicks are.

She could be a major scorer for any team. Instead she’s mostly the distributor on Ursuline. Kerry Ann O’Connor does most of the scoring. She had a goal today too.

Edgemont played better in the second half, although by that time Ursuline’s backups were in and some of the starters were playing out of position. Coach Malcolm Brown said he wanted to give some of the non-scorers a chance to play up front in the second half.

At 11-3-1, Ursuline should be one of the top seeds in the upcoming playoffs. Edgemont is 5-7-2.