Ailing wrestler's brother is league champ

He isn't even old enough to watch a PG-13 movie without parental guidance being advised. Yet there was 12-year-old Chris Mauriello of Hauppauge, weighing fewer than 100 pounds, wrestling for a varsity league high school championship while his older brother, Nick Jr., was fighting for his life in a hospital bed about 11 miles east.

Hollywood might reject this script as too unrealistic, but there was a genuine bit of true grit playing itself out on the mats at Kings Park High School last Saturday.

"It was emotional. The way they do the finals of a tournament, it's one mat in front of everybody," the boys' father, Nick Sr. said. "Chris took it to him [Andrew Roden of Kings Park] with a nice win. It was the first time in days we had anything to celebrate, and then the reality of it was after our minute of celebrating, Nick's back there in the hospital and we've got to get to him."

Without Chris, as it turned out.

"At that time it was pretty bad," Nick Sr. said, "and we didn't want to bring Chris back to the hospital until Nick was in better shape or looked better."

The prognosis was encouraging Wednesday, as Nick Jr.'s condition was upgraded from critical to serious and his breathing tube was removed for the first time. His condition was much more dire over the weekend, making what Chris did, under the circumstances, even more remarkable.

"I don't know how he did it,'' Hauppauge coach Chris Messina said. "I give the kid all the credit in the world."

SEE PHOTOSHauppauge High wrestler Nick Mauriello

For that League V championship meet, Messina wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the initials "NKM" and an action photo of Nick Mauriello, the 16-year-old who is recovering from the potentially lethal bacterial infections MRSA and Lamierre's syndrome.

"The kids all pitched in and got the T-shirts made," Messina said. "I really believe Nick was there [Saturday]. He was in our kids' minds."

And in their hearts, especially that of Chris, who was determined to make his brother proud and in doing so, give the rest of his family a chance to forget, ever so briefly, the ongoing drama unfolding at Stony Brook Long Island Children's Hospital.

"At one point, while Chris was wrestling, he seemed really disoriented. He looked like he was going to get nauseous," Messina said. "He was wrestling a kid that already beat him, 8-7, during the season. But he stayed focused the whole time. He was on a mission to bring that trophy to his brother."

That's a heavy burden for a kid of any age. For a 12 year old, it's unimaginable.

"He's pretty beat up about it; he idolizes Nick," Nick Sr. said. "It's killing him inside. But this little guy went out there and wrestled a junior who is 16 or 17 years old."

Chris didn't just wrestle. He sparkled, winning his 96-pound title match, 16-11. "It was the first time in seven days that anybody in my family got to smile," Nick Sr. said.

Hauppauge wrestlers did their best to send Nick Sr. to the hospital Saturday night with something to make Nick Jr. smile.

"Mark West, who is defending state champ and won the league title again [at 112], gave me his medal. Chance Menendez, one of the top guys in the state [at 171], gave me his [second-place] medal," Mauriello said. "And then at the end, the last thing the tournament announced was the Most Outstanding Wrestler. When they gave it to Chris, he walked over to me and said, 'Bring this to Nick.' "

When Nick Jr. was shown the MOP trophy, his father said, "He gave a little thumb's up."

It was a two thumbs-up performance all around.