MONMOUTH – A 15-year-old high school football player from Easton, Mass., drowned Thursday in Cobbosseecontee Lake while attending a training camp with teammates.

Police and school officials said the teen was attending a six-day preseason football camp at the private Camp Cobbossee for boys and had been swimming about 150 feet from shore.

Police in Easton identified the victim as Aaron Ortiz, who was entering his first year at Oliver Ames High School in North Easton, Mass.

Ortiz was in the water with several other football players, including his twin brother, when he tired and went under, sources said. A lifeguard was on duty but was unable to rescue the drowning teen, according to Monmouth police Chief Robert Annese.

“It appears the young man was not a strong swimmer and went out without a life vest and attempted to swim too far,” Annese said. The teen apparently “got in distress and went under before the lifeguard could get to him.”

The Oliver Ames football team was one of two that arrived at the Monmouth camp on Wednesday. The camp was rented to the football squads through Lakeside Retreats, which leases to outside groups once the traditional summer season has ended.

“This was a very good kid, well-liked by everybody,” said Mike Cappiello, a boxing trainer at Cappiello Brothers Boxing in Brockton, Mass., who had trained Ortiz for the past six months. “He was a great athlete. He wrestled, he played football, he boxed….He was a good student, and he came from a good family. This is a tragedy for everybody involved,” he said Thursday night by phone.

Approximately 90 players from the Oliver Ames Tigers were at the camp to train with roughly 60 other players from nearby Norton High School, school officials said.

According to a story published Thursday, before Ortiz drowned, in the Easton Journal newspaper, the trip to Cobbossee this week marked the first time this season the Oliver Ames Tigers had suited up together for training.

Ortiz was entering his first year at the high school, which begins at the 10th grade, school officials said.

“He was a popular kid,” Oliver Ames High School Assistant Principal Marc Brockman said Thursday night by phone. “He was involved in a lot of different sports.”

Dive teams from the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Department and the Maine Warden Service recovered the teen’s body at 1:25 p.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The Office of the Medical Examiner is scheduled to perform an autopsy today.

According to school officials, Oliver Ames High School Principal Wesley Paul headed to Monmouth with Ortiz’s father and uncle late Thursday afternoon.

Both Oliver Ames and Norton High football teams were returning to Massachusetts early Thursday evening, the week of training cut short as the players struggled to cope with the loss.

Brockman said school officials met with the parents of about 60 school students as word of the drowning spread. A large group was waiting at the school Thursday night to meet the returning football players.

“Local police were able to contact state police, and they’ll be leading the group to get them here as quickly as possible,” Brockman said about 7 p.m. “We’ll be doing everything we can to support the kids. It’s a grieving process, and it will take time.”

Brockman said school officials would address the entire group Thursday night before meeting privately with the team.

The school will be open today with grief counselors on hand.

Classes at Oliver Ames High School do not begin until after Labor Day.

Easton is about 23 miles south of Boston,with a population of about 23,000.

In Monmouth, the regular summer season at Cobbossee Cobbossee had ended, and the camp was opened to the teams of 150 high school athletes for the preseason training. About 4 p.m. Thursday, camp officials released a written statement from Lakeside Retreats President Dan Zenkel.

“This is a tragic accident,” Zenkel stated. “We are all deeply saddened by the loss of this young football player, who was here with his team for preseason training.

“We are doing everything we can to assist the authorities in their investigation,” Zenkel wrote, “and our thoughts are with the friends and family of this individual.”