LEWISTON - Jason Fuller never once doubted Mohamed Noor.

A second cross country runner came forward Wednesday, corroborating a Lewiston runner's story that he had "something thrown at his eyes" during the New England Cross Country Championships at the Twin Brook course in Cumberland last Saturday.

"You just don't believe that this could happen," Fuller said.

"This is not what high school athletics is all about. You're just taken aback that something like this could go down."

Fuller, the athletic director at Lewiston High School, learned of the incident via phone message late last Saturday afternoon.

He kept his silence on the matter while coach Ray Putnam spoke, maintaining that he wanted to have more information before saying anything.

"I would not expect anything less in terms of him being angry or upset," Fuller said.

"You develop relationships with kids, and that's why you coach. You understand where he's coming from, his anger. That's normal. I wouldn't expect anything less from any other coach."

On Wednesday, Noor's case got a lot stronger.

A runner from St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont came forward to say that he, too, felt like "a clump of dirt hit the back of (his) head."

"That would be a really weird angle to have it kicked up at," St. Johnsbury runner Kyle Powers told the Portland Press Herald.

Noor preferred not to speak to the media, but Fuller did.

"Unfortunately, there's not much you can do," Fuller said Wednesday, "and that's the part that people need to realize. You can't rerun the race, you can't change the results. That's the travesty. You have a kid, Mohamed, who's a great kid, who's fun to be around, who has a wonderful personality, great integrity and great ethics. And for some reason he loses the right to finish the race (under normal circumstances) and see where he finishes."

Fuller said that the cross country team, which for many years languished at or near the bottom of the pack, had found a resurgence in recent years. This year's team, he said, is one of the best, not only for their on-course accomplishments (they won the Class A state title), but for their ability to assimilate as a team.

"They've done everything right this year," Fuller said. "They've become loyal teammates, and they've gotten rid of any type of ethnic backgrounds or anything, and they've come together as a group. Every one of those kids, from the No. 1 runner down to the 14th, 15th kid, they care about each other. That's what high school sports is all about. This incident really mars what high school sports is all about."

Fuller confirmed Wednesday that Noor did seek medical attention, but couldn't say any more than that due to privacy concerns.

Paul Driscoll, a Lewiston booster who has a son, Matt, on the cross-country team, said Noor received treatment that night at a Lewiston hospital, where a doctor said that either sand or a household cleaner could have caused the irritation to his eyes.

"What the substance thrown was, we'll never know," Fuller said. "Let's get that out there right now. We can all guess what was out there, but we don't know."

Fuller was also adamant that any reference to the incident being related to Noor's ethnicity was premature at best, and dead wrong at worst.

"The race thing has to be put aside," Fuller said. "The bottom line is, here's a high school kid who does everything right, and gets something taken away from him. I don't care if it was any one of my other athletes. If one of my athletes gets injured for no reason, of course I'm going to defend that kid, and I know my coaches are going to defend them the same way. This isn't about race, even though that's out there, this is about a high school kid who had an injustice done to him."

Noor's family wasn't so sure.

His mother told Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., that another Somali from Lewiston who was watching the race witnessed the assault.

The witness reported seeing the man throw something at Noor twice, but miss him the first time, Jamal said. The unidentified substance caused Noor to slow down, feel heavy and eventually collapse at the end of the race, Jamal said.

Noor's mother also said the man in the woods was the same man who approached Noor and Lewiston High School teammate Sadam Abdi before the race and tried to hand them biblical pamphlets, Jamal said.

Given those accounts, Jamal said it appears the attack was racially motivated. He said he will ask the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate.

"We have to use the legal system to send a message to those who are driven by hatred and racial motives," Jamal said.

Calls to the Cumberland Police Department were not returned Wednesday, and Fuller only described what he knew of the investigation to be "ongoing."