Even in his finest moment, you’re not going to get Ty McCormack to say anything overly confident about an individual accomplishment. Honestly all he cares about is how his North Hall team finishes.

McCormack, a senior, pulled away from his own teammate Cody Barger and won the Hall County championship with a time of 17 minutes, 1 second Thursday afternoon at Chestatee Middle. Instead of commenting on winning his fifth race in as many meets this season, he just wanted to talk about his team winning the team title with 30 points.

“Our team won so that’s always the first thing,” said McCormack, after winning on a revised course set to elude the soft spots on the normal course caused by recent heavy rain.

McCormack now has wins this season at Hall County, the Northeast Georgia Championships, the Berry Invitational, the War Eagle meet and the West Hall Invitational.

In the girls race, Flowery Branch’s Kiara Woods dominated the race from beginning to end with a time of 19:35, more than 1:30 ahead of the second-place finisher. This is Woods’ first win of the season after placing second at the Northeast Georgia Championships and the Carrollton Invitational. Chestatee junior Kelsey Neukum placed second (21:20).

Not only was McCormack racing for a top finish for his current team, but he was also racing to make the members of the 2006 state title team from North Hall proud, who were represented by members that came out to support the current team along the course.

“It means a lot that those guys from that team came out and wanted to see us do well,” McCormack added.

The race at Hall County adhered to the protocol for North Hall’s top two runners. McCormack and Barger were stride for stride for most of the race, and finally separated on the back turn at approximately Mile 2.

McCormack says that runners from Flowery Branch were catching quickly, which made it more or less an open competition for the final mile.

Barger finished 20 seconds behind McCormack, and Flowery Branch’s David Farist placed third (17:39). Kenny Slavik from Flowery Branch finished fourth (17:42) and Gainesville’s David Whitson placed fifth (17:44).

According to McCormack, the new course was easier overall with one of the main hills out of the equation due to sloppy conditions, but was more difficult in regards to tighter turns.

In team points, Flowery Branch’s boys placed second (38), Gainesville earned third (75), Chestatee placed fourth (120) and West Hall finished fifth (127).

The battle for the team title on the girls title wasn’t as close. Flowery Branch took three of the top-five places and finished with 30 points.

North Hall was second (52), West Hall finished third (87), Chestatee earned fourth (90) and Gainesville placed fifth (114). Along with Woods in the top five for Flowery Branch, Eileen Devico finished third for the Lady Falcons (21:31) and Brenda Navarro placed fifth (21:57).

North Hall’s girls team placed three runners in the top 10, including Patrice Sweet, who finished fourth (21:55), Victoria Rogers in sixth place (22:19) and Ashley Lawson in eighth (22:37).