CHAPEL HILL – A Chapel Hill High School football player is dead after a hit-and-run accident.

Troopers said Rodney Torain was riding in a car driven by 18-year-old Ashley Bynum when another car tried to pass them on a curve, forced them off the road and into a tree.

Bynum told state troopers the car began following them early Sunday morning on the Greensboro Highway, just outside of Carrboro. They tried to lose the trailing car by turning around, but that the car sped up, tried to pass in a curve and side-swiped Bynum's car, sending it off the road and into a tree.

Bynum and another passenger, 17-year-old Laticia Farrington, survived minor injuries. Torain suffered a head injury. He died on the scene.

Troopers said alcohol was not involved in the crash. They said Bynum and Farrington were wearing seatbelts, but Torain was not.

Torain's mother, Deanne Jackson, said her son called her worried just before 4 a.m. Sunday.

"He said, ‘Mama I'm on my way home, but I think somebody is following us, but we're going to try something else,' " she said.

Troopers described the vehicle as a gold or silver four-door sedan with damage to its front right passenger side. Teal green Paint from Bynum's car likely rubbed off on the sedan.

Anyone with any information is asked to call the Highway Patrol.

But while authorities continue their investigation, the community at Chapel Hill High School is coping with the second death of a classmate this school year.

Atlas Fraley collapsed and died at his home, hours after a scrimmage game in August. Fraley and Torain were best friends and star athletes.

"My son had big dreams,” said Jackson. “He was going to play ball at somebody's college."