Colin McGrath was resting on his friend’s shoulder on the St. Ignatius College Prep hockey team’s bus Saturday evening after a tournament in Indiana.

“All of a sudden I hear a crash, bang, and I blacked out,” said McGrath, a player on the school’s junior varsity Wolfpack team.

A semitruck had plowed into their bus as the team returned to a hotel from dinner in Warsaw, about 50 miles south of South Bend.

McGrath woke up on top of his friend, shattered glass was strewn everywhere.

“I picked up my friend and some pedestrian came and opened the emergency door for us,” he said. “After that it was just walking, freaking out, just getting out and figuring out what was happening and getting everyone safe.”

McGrath was seated in the rear of the bus, near where the truck struck it.

“If I was one row back, it would’ve been a lot worse,” he said.

Sixteen students were hurt and three of them were taken in “very critical” condition to Fort Wayne Lutheran Hospital, police said.

McGrath suffered a dislocated shoulder and swollen jaw, he said. His left arm was in a sling as he returned to class Monday morning, wearing his Wolfpack hockey jersey.

The crash happened around 8 p.m. Saturday. The school’s junior varsity hockey team had competed in a tournament at Culver Military Academy.

Felony DUI charges were pending against a semi driver who police say ran a red light and crashed into a bus carrying 23 students and two hockey coaches.

One of the seriously injured students was discharged from a hospital Sunday evening, school spokeswoman Kristyn Hartman said Monday. Two other students were expected to remain hospitalized for three to five more days, she said.

Ten others on the bus were uninjured, police said. All were taken by another school bus to Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital, where officers notified relatives, police said. The students are 14 to 17 years old.

The seriously injured players will require more surgery for internal injuries, McGrath said.

McGrath was eager to leave the hospital and reunite with his team.

“I didn’t want to be there because I wanted to be with my teammates. We all stayed together and prayed,” he said.

Members of the team have been visiting the hospitalized players, he said. The whole team plans to visit them again sometime this week, McGrath said.

The students were returning from dinner when the crash happened, according to school officials. The bus driver was turning left off U.S. 30 when the semi driver went through a red light and struck the rear of the bus, flipping the bus on its side, police said.

The semi driver continued west and was stopped less than a mile away after driving off the road and into a ditch, police said. Police officers on the scene “detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on his person and in the cab of the semi,” according to police.

Police said they already were responding to calls reporting a semi driver “swerving into other lanes and driving at excessive speed” before being alerted that the driver had crashed into the school bus.

The driver, 58, from Brooklyn, New York, was in custody and facing charges of driving while intoxicated and causing great bodily harm.

In an email to parents Sunday, the school said it was “happy to share that coaches were able to speak with all three students who remain in the hospital. They say they were heartened to hear the young men ask about their brothers on the team.”

Hockey director and varsity head coach Spencer Montgomery thanked the police and emergency crews who responded. “They were timely, organized and put the health of our boys at the forefront,” he said.

A Mass for the team will be held at the Church of the Holy Family at 3:30 p.m. Monday. The school said students will also be provided with counseling.

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MIAMI — Caroline O’Connor didn’t know what her ceiling was when she entered the sports business world, simply because there were so few examples of women who traveled her path.

Turns out, she had no limit.

The Miami Marlins promoted O’Connor to president of business operations on Monday, making them the first U.S. major sports franchise to have women serving simultaneously as president and general manager. The Marlins made history by hiring Kim Ng as GM in November 2020; two years later, they’ve made another significant move.

“When I talk to young girls, I really like them to see me in my role because I didn’t feel like I had that role model,” O’Connor said. “And I want people to see themselves when they see me and know that it is a possibility.”

O’Connor is just the second woman to serve as president of a Major League Baseball team; Seattle’s Catie Griggs is the other. She was brought to the Marlins by then-CEO Derek Jeter in 2017 as a senior vice president and chief of staff, then became the team’s chief operating officer in 2019.

Ng handles the on-field business, O’Connor runs the off-field business.

“We are fortunate to have someone with Caroline’s business acumen and vision leading our day-to-day business operations,” Marlins chairman and principal owner Bruce Sherman said. “Her passion and drive for success is unmatched in our game and the South Florida market. Her leadership will continue to guide the Marlins organization toward our goal of sustained success while strategizing additional new ventures to grow our business and enhance our brand recognition.”

O’Connor’s path to this spot was, in some ways, unintentional. She was a high school athlete in New Jersey — playing basketball, tennis, soccer and softball — and went to college at Rutgers and New York University, first studying computers, then finance.

She worked for some powerful places: IBM, UBS Investment Bank, Morgan Stanley. She wasn’t thinking about a career in sports.

And then Jeter called.

“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” O’Connor said.

She’s been with the Marlins ever since.

Miami has been trying to turn things around, on the field and off, for the better part of the last two decades. Jeter was part of the ownership group that took over in 2017; he’s gone, but two of his more significant hires — Ng and O’Connor — are now tasked with finishing the job.

O’Connor has seen progress. Attendance this past season was up 12% over 2019, the last time there was a full season of baseball without pandemic interruptions or major restrictions — though there is still a long way to go before Miami gets the crowds it is seeking.

O’Connor has overseen growth in season-ticket sales. With the 2023 World Baseball Classic coming to Miami for all three rounds in March, including the championship game, the Marlins know big crowds are coming. O’Connor is fixated on how to get those people to come back as Marlins customers.

“I think it’s a really special place,” she said. “And I would say if we didn’t feel so strongly about this market and the opportunity that is here, that would not make us so excited to come in every day. I think we have so many people in this market that love entertainment, love sports, love baseball, love getting together and going out. It’s just trying to create an experience that attracts everyone.”

The growing role of women in baseball leadership isn’t lost on O’Connor. Griggs leads the Mariners; Laura Day is Minnesota’s executive vice president and chief business officer; Kellie Fischer has a similar role in Texas, as the Rangers’ EVP and chief financial officer.

“I’ve been incredibly fortunate in that I’ve had a lot of support from a lot of different people, regardless of gender, my entire career,” Griggs said earlier this year on a panel at Seattle University. “With that being said, I haven’t been able to see a lot of people who look like me doing the stuff that I do. … I don’t have a lot of role models.”

O’Connor feels the same way. She doesn’t mind the “trailblazer” description. She just goes about all the details of her job — including sitting down with community groups and civic organizations, even having lunch last month with the Consul General of Japan at his Miami residence — knowing that her success now might make it easier for women to follow.

“It’s taken a real community to get behind me,” O’Connor said. “The team that I work with today, the team that supports me every day, I feel like this is a reflection on all of them and what we’ve produced together. I might have the title, but of course I think about all the people that help me get it.”

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The Bulls had two days of practice under their belt entering their game Sunday against the Nuggets, but there was no indication of it in their play in a 126-103 loss at the United Center.

They scored only 20 points in the first quarter and allowed the Nuggets to score 32 on 60% shooting from the field and 50% from three-point range.

Things got worse from there. Michael Porter Jr. scored at will, and Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic got easy points in the post. Simply put, the Bulls looked like a team sleepwalking their way through a game for which they should have been fresh.

The time they had to prepare because of the break in their schedule called the loss further into question, and coach Billy Donovan had no answers except to say it was an energy issue.

”We had three days in terms of no games, so we should have been an extremely fresh basketball team,” Donovan said. ”’There’s always some form of adversity that hits the game, and we have to be better at thriving in that.”

Nuggets coach Mike Malone was focused on three stats entering the game. In their four losses, the Nuggets are allowing teams to score an average of 128 points and to shoot 44% from three-point range and are giving up an average of 25 second-chance points.

His team kept the Bulls well below 128 points, held them to 27.3% shooting from three-point range and allowed only eight second-chance points.

The loss dropped the Bulls to 6-8, but it was only the second time they had been beaten by 10 or more points. The first was in their home opener by the Cavaliers.

The Bulls are 0-6 in ”clutch” time, which is defined by the league as games separated by five points or fewer with five minutes or less to play. Unfortunately for them, the game Sunday didn’t qualify. The Nuggets led by 21 points to start the fourth quarter and extended their edge to as many as 28.

The Bulls tried to get back into the game in the third quarter. They cut an 18-point deficit to 11 before the Nuggets responded by pushing their lead to 20. The Bulls never trailed by fewer than 17 the rest of the night, and fans started heading for the exits with about five minutes left.

”I believe energy is a choice,” Donovan said. ”You can’t play off of feelings because feelings come and go. You have to choose to do things. We have a choice in what kind of energy we play with.”

Porter picked the Bulls’ defense apart. He finished with 31 points on 11-for-16 shooting from the field, including 6-for-9 from three-point range. Jamal Murray added 23 points, and Jokic had eight points and 14 assists.

”Some of the shots Porter made, he just rose up and shot over us,” Donovan said. ”You have to be able to not get so dejected.”

Offensively, the Bulls struggled to establish any kind of rhythm and gave up 19 points off 21 turnovers. Zach LaVine scored a team-high 21 points, and DeMar DeRozan added 16. Alex Caruso was held scoreless, taking only one shot in 21 minutes.

Reserve big man Andre Drummond had 13 points and 11 rebounds, becoming the 32nd center in league history to score 10,000 career points and the eighth who has worn a Bulls jersey.

LaVine and DeRozan are the players the Bulls turn to for direction after losses such as the one Sunday. At this point, however, there’s nothing more to be said.

”It’s all about action after that,” LaVine said. ”Sometimes we just have to shut up and go out there and play our game.”

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