BUTLER TWP — A year away from the volleyball court and her family made Danika Durand miss both.

So she came back to both.

A standout for the Freeport volleyball team, Durand made the decision to fulfill a promise she made to her brother Derek, who committed suicide in June of 2012.

Derek Durand was entering his sophomore year and a member of the football team at Slippery Rock University when he died. Danika Durand was a senior at Freeport.

“He’s the reason why I went to Slippery Rock in the first place,” Durand said. “I told him, ‘Since you’re at Slippery Rock, that’s where I want to go. I want to be there to watch you play football.’ That was a promise I made to him.

“Plus, I wanted to be on my own and grieve on my own and do things on my own, and I realized I need to be with my family,” she added. “That really pulled me back home.”

And back to the volleyball court.

Durand had wanted to play volleyball after her high school career concluded, where she was a solid right-side hitter for the Yellowjackets.

But she said she felt her skills didn’t translate to the Division II level, so she tried cheerleading instead.

“It wasn’t me,” Durand said.

Volleyball was her and Butler County Community College welcomed her with open arms.

And with a position change.

“I had the option to go to BC3 out of high school,” Durand said. “(Pioneers’ volleyball coach Rob Snyder) and I talked about it during my senior year a little bit.”

Snyder caught wind that Durand was leaving SRU and was going to attend BC3 and reached out to her.

Durand was all in, position change and all.

Durand, a sophomore, is now the Pioneers’ setter — a radically different role than she had in high school.

“She’s a good athlete and I think that helps,” Snyder said of Durand’s transition. “It’s a process and it started with fundamentals. The hardest transition from right-side to setter is making decisions, running the team, managing situations.”

Durand has acclimated well. She leads the 9-6 Pioneers with 245 assists. She also has 75 digs and 20 service aces.

Recently, she was named to the all-tournament team at the Montgomery College Volleyball Tournament after collecting 68 assists and 25 digs in the four-match event.

“She has a lot of energy and she’s willing to run around and do the tough stuff,” Snyder said. “She wants to be the setter and, at this level, you want someone who wants to be a setter.”

Durand hadn’t even bumped a volleyball in nearly 365 days when she showed up for the first Pioneers’ open gym this summer.

She used that time to shake off the rust.

Once the season started, she took a crash course in Setting 101.

“I was so nervous,” Durand said. “My biggest thing was I didn’t want to let my teammates down because if I can’t get the set up, the hitters can’t hit it down. I had to work extra hard.”

Durand admitted she is surprised she is doing as well as she is in that role.

She also admitted she has a lot more work to do.

“I’m so hard on myself. I always want to do better,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m at a place yet where I’m really confident. My goal is to keep working on that and get better each day.”