North Rockland coach Barry Baloga knows the look. The one he saw on junior A.J. Savoia's face as they rode the bus to the county championships.

"If you see a kid have this stone-cold look on his face you know the race is going one of two ways," Baloga said.

He's either going to blow the race wide open or sprint out super-excited and finish sometime when the parks crew is cleaning up and the rest of the team is waiting on the bus.

Savoia's look was hidden behind these giant sunglasses. The kind that sprinters wear, making them look scary.

"He definitely has a sprinter's attitude in a distance runner's body," Baloga said. "He had on these shades that would make (Washington Redskins running back) Clinton Portis blush."

He wore the same ones when the season started.

"So we started calling him Hollywood," Baloga said.

And Savoia ran like he wanted to be a star. He is The Journal News boys cross country runner of the year.

He took the shades off and won his first Rockland County championship that day at Bear Mountain in 15:58.52. Three months earlier, Savoia was hoping just to round out the top three on his own team.

"After the race I was going nuts," he said. "I was just so happy."

A year ago, Savoia raced as the fifth or sixth man on the team. Suddenly he had become the No. 1.

"He just got so good so fast," teammate Joe Grimm said. "It was amazing."

Before the season started, Baloga pulled Savoia aside, along with Grimm and Muhammad Qaisar. He told them they could be the top three runners in the county. Savoia thought his coach was slowly losing his sanity. Savoia didn't think he belonged. That soon changed.

"I thought I was going to have to run my rear end off to get that third spot (on the team)," Savoia said. "I think I just got a lot more confident. Coach had a talk with all of us. I felt like he was talking directly to me."

Savoia committed himself from the start. That meant meeting his teammates in the summer and logging more mileage than he ever had before.

It meant becoming a leader when he had never needed to play that role before. It meant learning. From everybody.

"It's always good to have guys step up," Grimm said. "(Savoia) didn't only step up as a runner. He stepped up as a person."

He became the third straight North Rockland runner to win the county individual title. He became so much of a leader that his individual win took a back seat to his team's one-point loss to Pearl River for the county title.

"He honestly was really disappointed," Baloga said. "How couldn't he be happy with winning a Rockland County championship with all the history behind it. Justly, he was very proud of his achievement. But he was one of our biggest motivators. As much as he could have gotten wrapped up in himself, he was more concerned with the team."

Savoia remembered that day when Baloga called him out. He remembered being unsure. That's all different now.

"I definitely believed it then but it hadn't really sunk in until after counties," Savoia said. "My confidence is just there now. My goals are a lot different."

The Journal News boys cross country all-county team was selected with the assistance of the Rockland coaches.