FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The Hopi High School football team had its best regular season ever, going 9-1 into a playoff game against a top-seeded team. Facing a complete shutdown, senior wide receiver Charles Youvella caught a pass and scored the team’s only touchdown in the third quarter.

Well into the fourth quarter in Saturday’s 60-6 loss to Arizona Lutheran Academy, Youvella fell hard on his head and collapsed a couple of plays later. He died Monday at the hospital of a traumatic brain injury.

An Institute of Medicine and National Research Council report said 250,000 people age 19 and younger were treated in emergency rooms for concussions and other sports- or recreation-related brain injuries in the country in 2009. That was an increase from 150,000 in 2001.

A community memorial is planned Wednesday evening at the high school auditorium in Keams Canyon. The high school has grief counselors on hand.

Youvella died with this family at his side. His father, Wallace Youvella Jr., is the school’s athletic director.

School spirits were high earlier Saturday as the boys and girls cross country teams won state titles.