Talk about closing your playing career with a bang.

Butler graduate Mackenzie O’Donnell is making the most of her final women’s basketball season at La Roche College.

O’Donnell is averaging 15.2 points and 5.7 rebounds per game for a Red Hawks team that closed the regular season with a 16-game winning streak. La Roche polished off an 18-0 record in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference, marking the first time in the program’s history it had a perfect conference season.

The regular season finale was a 72-57 victory over D’Youville. O’Donnell scored 29 points and added 13 rebounds in that win.

La Roche hosts the AMCC tournament next weekend. O’Donnell will enter that tourney with 1,534 career points, one point behind Chantelle Jennings for third on the Red Hawks’ all-time scoring list. She is only 42 points behind former Butler and La Roche teammate Casie Cygan for second.

La Roche’s all-time leading scorer, Sabrina McLin, has 1,697 points and is a current teammate of O’Donnell’s.

Here’s hoping for a long tournament run from one of the most consistent players to ever come through the Butler girls basketball program.

Still stopping pucks

Former Center Township resident and former Michigan State goaltending standout Jake Hildebrand is now with the Indy Fuel of the East Coast Hockey League.

The Fuel are affiliated with the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks. Hildebrand began the season with Chicago’s American Hockey League franchise, the Rockford (Ill.) Ice Hogs and was 0-1 with a 4.58 goals against average before going to Indy.

With the Fuel, Hildebrand is 13-17-2 with a 3.54 GAA, four shutouts and a .902 save percentage. Indy is 15-33-2 overall.

Butler trio rolls on

After leading the Butler High School girls bowling team to the state championship a few years back, Brea Suchonic, Autumn Hepler and Megan Paul continue their bowling success in the collegiate ranks.

Suchonic, a senior, recently made the All-Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference team as the top bowler at Penn State Altoona.

Hepler, also a senior, continues to be one of the top bowlers at Ursuline (Ohio). Her father, Jim Hepler, is the coach at Ursuline this season and was an assistant coach on that Butler state title team.

Paul is a sophomore at Lindenwood (Mo.) and has been a key contributor to a nationally-ranked program there.

Congrats in order

While Butler has been the perennial high school bowling power in the area, Mars junior Daniel Schell broke through and won the WPIBL individual boys singles championship this past week.

Schell defeated three opponents in a step-ladder format to win the title.