Suffolk Police said they are investigating whether the car accident that fatally injured Bayport-Blue Point High School athlete Carlo Geronimo came after an egg-throwing prank and an ensuing car chase.

Friends of Geronimo, 18, who spoke yesterday on condition that their names not be disclosed, told Newsday that the 1:48 a.m. Monday accident came after the passengers in his car threw eggs at another student on a residential street.

The student then got into his car and chased Geronimo's 2000 Infiniti, which went out of control and hit a tree on a sharp curve on Middle Road near Bayport Avenue in Bayport.

Suffolk Police confirmed the account given by Geronimo's friends, and said speed may have been a factor in the accident. "We're investigating an egg-throwing incident that preceded the crash," said Suffolk Police Sgt. Daniel Molloy of the Fifth Precinct. "That's what we believed happened. The person involved in the pursuit called police after the accident."

Both Geronimo's car and the other student's BMW were impounded by investigators.

"We don't know how fast the cars were going. Unless a witness comes forward we may never know. They weren't drag racing," Molloy said. "There's no precedent for this type of situation. But this one may set the precedent for the future in these kinds of accidents. We're still looking at the person who was following him."

Geronimo, who played centerfield on his high school baseball team, was less than a mile from his Bayport home when his car left the road. He was taken by police helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:55 a.m. Monday, police said.

Two passengers in Geronimo's car were injured. One, George Wenz, was in stable condition at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center yesterday, a spokeswoman said. The families of Wenz and Geronimo could not be reached for comment. Wenz is also an athlete at Bayport-Blue Point High School, which is closed for spring break until Monday.

Geronimo, a West Babylon High School football player before he moved to Bayport, kept a Web page on MySpace.com in which he listed his hometown as "Moved outta West Babylon to Bayport-Bluepoint." Among the interests he listed were "ALL console gaMeRs, West Bab Football."

The Web page noted, "Carlo has 1113 friends." Some friends posted messages to him in the days before his death.

"hey i heard you got asked to play football from a college in arizona is that tru," one said. Another included a sentence from a recent Newsday article about his Bayport team: "Outfielder Carlo Geronimo is the main weapon in coach Jim Moccio's aggressive offensive." Another: "my fav thing is to come/back and to see that you hit/homeruns. it makes me very/proud."