MARLBOROUGH - Days after losing team captain Frank DeMeo in a tragic accident, the Nashoba Regional High School wrestling team was back on the mats yesterday wrestling in their final tournament of the season in his honor.
Team members arrived yesterday at the Central Massachusetts Division 2 Sectional Tournament at Marlborough High School in black T-shirts that read "For Frankie" across the back.
"He was a good mentor, he really was," said Carolyn Atwood, whose son Matt is on the team. "He'd help out the younger kids, show them moves."
DeMeo, 19, was out jogging near school Tuesday when he was accidentally struck and killed by a teammate. The top-seed in the 112-pound weight class, DeMeo had won the tournament the past two years and was expected by many to win again yesterday.
A moment of silence was held in his honor at the beginning of the tournament.
"I think they want to try and win it for him," Jeremy Roche, Nashoba Regional High School's principal, said at the event yesterday..
Already a tight-knit team, last week's tragedy brought the team even closer, Roche said.
"This really had a devastating effect in many ways," he said. "But the fact that they are close has been positive; they have someone to help them through it."
School officials said DeMeo was trying to burn off excess weight on Tuesday afternoon when he took off jogging.
With a 24-and-1 record, he had less than a pound to lose before his final regular season match later that day. He never returned.
Shortly after he left the school grounds at about 3 p.m., according to police, DeMeo was hit by a car driven by David Hayden, a 17-year-old teammate who was on his way to pick up another teammate and had two wrestlers in the car with him.
Authorities said that the teenagers immediately got out of the car and called 911 on their cellphones. Two of the teens ran to get help, while one stayed behind with DeMeo.
He was rushed to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, where he was pronounced dead.
DeMeo's father, Tony, met with the team Wednesday and encouraged them to attend the event, Bolton's Police Chief, Vincent Alfano, said last week.
"He wanted them to continue in the sport," he said. "Frankie would have wanted that. It was really his life, wrestling."
By all accounts, DeMeo was a dedicated wrestler who made up in hard work what he lacked in natural talent. School officials called him a quiet leader who led by example.
When the team was ahead in dual meets, DeMeo would give up his chance at a victory in order to give the junior varsity wrestlers time on the mat, Roche said.
"It hurt his state rankings, but it was more important to him to give a younger wrestler a chance," he said.
"It was a team sport to him."
Last week, teammates decorated DeMeo's locker at Nashoba Regional, displaying his wrestling shoes and singlet along with notes from friends and the 12 commandments of wrestling. The fourth rule was underlined: "Thou shall respect all and fear none."
A wake will be held today in Acton Funeral Home from 2 to 6 p.m. A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Church of St. Isidore in Stow.
Tania deLuzuriaga can be reached at deluzuriaga@globe.com.
