BELFAST – Mohamed Noor ran his first competitive distance race less than a year ago.

It came during a gym class at Lewiston High School when Noor, then a newly arrived immigrant from Somalia, ran against Robbie Leeman, the school’s fastest distance runner.

They raced for a mile, and Noor won – all while wearing untied basketball shoes.

One year later, the former soccer player is wearing running shoes and he’s quickly establishing himself as perhaps Maine’s premier schoolboy runner.

The Lewiston senior dominated a high-quality field Saturday at the Maine Cross Country Festival of Champions, leaving his closest competition behind two miles into the 3.1-mile race to win in a time of 15 minutes, 53.8 seconds.

“We went out pretty fast, I just tried to stay with the leaders,” said third-place finisher Riley Masters, who was part of the lead pack with Noor and Ethan Shaw of Falmouth. We ended up going through the mile at just under 4:50. I was able to stay with them until about the two-mile mark, and then Mohamed Noor just took off with about a mile to go.”

It seemed Noor could have created his own pace at any point during the race, but stayed with the other leaders as part of a strategy to prevent him from going out too fast on this breezy afternoon.

“It was kind of hard for him,” said teammate Sadam Abdi, who served as Noor’s interpreter after placing 11th among the 506 boys finishers in the three heats that made up the race. “He wanted to take off but coach [Dan] Putnam was telling him to stay behind them.

“After the two-mile mark mile he was going to run.”

Making Noor’s performance all the more impressive is the fact he is participating in the Fast of Ramadan, a monthlong Muslim observance during which he can neither eat nor drink from sunrise to sunset each day.

“Sometimes it makes me sick,” said Noor of running while fasting. “But today was kind of cool so it didn’t affect me that much.”

Led by Noor, ninth-place Leeman and Abdi, Lewiston, the top-ranked team in the most recent Maine Cross Country Coaches Association poll, cruised to the team victory – despite having No. 5 runner Jeff Lucier drop out of the race with an ankle injury.

The Blue Devils totaled 100 points, well ahead of Portland (160) and Mt. Blue of Farmington (161) among 39 scoring teams. Cumberland, R.I., was fourth with 224 points, while Winthrop (226) was fifth.

Falmouth (234) and Scarborough (240) were next, while Medomak Valley of Waldoboro, led by seniors Alex Goldrup (14th overall) and Matt Poulin (18th) finished eighth with 263 points and Caribou (295) and Ellsworth (299) completed the top 10. Caribou was led by Spencer McElwain’s 19th-place effort, while Logan Will finished a team-best 17th for Ellsworth.

Shaw finished second in the individual competition with a time of 16:09.1, just edging third-place Masters, who ran a personal-best 5-kilometer time of 16:11.6.

“Once we hit the camel humps with a half-mile to go Noor was gone,” said Masters. “He was nowhere to be seen, so I just set my sights on Ethan Shaw. Ethan was able to get me at the end, but it was an all-around good day.”

Masters knew what to expect from Noor, having also competed against him a week earlier during a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference meet at Leavitt High School in Turner Center. He similarly stayed with the Lewiston standout for much of that race before settling for second place, 13 seconds behind Noor.

“The first time around I figured I could play some games with him, I’d take the lead and then go slow and then take it home in the last mile,” said Masters, “but the kid’s just got great speed and a huge heart. He’s a really tough competitor.

“I think Noor hasn’t even reached his peak yet. I figured he wasn’t going to run much faster than he ran last week, but today he went under 16 [minutes] and that’s just ridiculous for a midseason run.”