Prep Player Dies After Collapsing : Football: Defensive back at McFarland in Kern County suffers brain hemorrhage.

A varsity high school football captain begged to stay in the game moments before collapsing from a brain hemorrhage, his coach said.

Freddy Mendoza, 17, died Sunday after his life support systems were removed, said Donna Hicks, a nursing supervisor at Bakersfield’s Memorial Hospital. The McFarland High School senior was declared brain dead after being in a coma for nearly two days, she said.

Mendoza, a two-year starting strong safety, was hit hard Friday as he tried to block a rival Immanuel High School player on a late first-quarter kickoff.

He looked “glassy eyed and dazed,” after the jolting hit but picked himself up and asked to remain in the game, Coach Robert Hadfield said.

Later, as an ambulance took Mendoza from the field, tight end John Connelly said his teammate again begged to get back into the game before slipping into a coma.

“He was laying down shaking, saying ‘No, I want to play. I want to play,’ ” Connelly said. “I tried to grab his foot and calm him down. All the sudden his feet stopped moving and his arms stopped moving.”

Hadfield said Mendoza also suffered a head injury in the Cougars’ Sept. 27 game against Fowler High School. He sat out the second half of that game and complained of a headache four days later, the coach said.

Mendoza also missed six games of the 1990 season with a neck injury, the coach reported.

Students at McFarland were offered counseling Monday, according to Principal Larry Yeghoian, who described the campus mood as somber.

He added that school officials would wait for an autopsy to determine if an investigation is needed.

“He took a vicious, pretty good hit Friday night,” the principal said. “We’re as concerned about the cause of death as anyone else.”

A film of Friday’s game was to be reviewed as part of an autopsy report due late Monday, a spokesman for Kern County coroner’s office said.