JACKSON TWP — The last thing on Dana Hughes' mind on Jan. 18 was her senior project. But after she was critically injured in a car accident that morning, her friends and teammates made it their priority.

Dana suffered severe head injuries and her best friend, Shannon Quail, was killed along snowy Interstate 79 as the pair headed to a lacrosse match. Flown to a Pittsburgh trauma center, Dana was left with injuries that allowed her only an extremely frail grip on life.

An all-around athlete who earned a full softball scholarship to the University of Connecticut, Dana was a quarter of the way through her senior project. The complex project, which is a graduation requirement for Seneca Valley seniors, is part research project and part service project, as students choose a situation and seek a way to improve it.

The senior project is completed in four parts: turning in a research paper, participating in or initiating an event related to the project, turning in a portfolio of information and research, and giving a presentation to a panel of teachers and experts on the student's subject.

Dana's senior project was to help the International Softball Federation's fight to bring women's softball back to the Olympic Games by 2013.

"She would probably be on that Olympic team," said her senior project teacher/mentor, Lisa Tyson. "She was that good. It's rare for this area to be given a scholarship to a Division I school."

Dana had turned in her research paper prior to the accident, and planned to run in a marathon to raise money for the federation.

But when tragedy struck on that snowy Sunday, it seemed Dana's project plans were scuttled.

Enter the Seneca Valley girls varsity volleyball and softball team members, who felt the need to help the teammate they love as a friend and respect as an athlete.

The girls talked to Tyson, who they knew was Dana's senior project mentor.

"Within two days of the accident, the girls approached me and asked if they could do her senior project for her," Tyson said on Monday. "I told them I would approach her parents when the time was right."

When the Hughes family gave their full support a week later, Tyson joined with Dana's former volleyball and softball coaches, Leigh Dunn and Tracy Schultz, to get the project off the ground.

The women organized "Run for Dana," a half-marathon in North Park on Saturday during the annual marathon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Dana had been training to run in the marathon when she suffered her injuries.

Individuals or businesses can sponsor the teammates, school staff, friends and family running to raise money for Dana's softball project, which would fulfill the second part of her project.

"The selflessness of these kids to do this when they have so much going on themselves in their senior year, it affirms the teenage spirit and the Seneca Valley spirit," Tyson said. "It's become this beautiful thing and taken on a life of its own. We have 89 people registered to run for Dana."

Dana, who visited the Seneca Valley campus on Monday wearing a smart fringed headscarf and long earrings that brushed her neck brace, is making what many agree is a miraculous recovery. But the bright-eyed teen was quick to praise her peers for their efforts.

"It makes me realize how great of friends I have," Dana said. "It's awesome that it'll count for my senior project even though everyone else is doing it."

Although she is only having the surgical staples removed from her head a few days before the marathon, she plans to attend the half-marathon on Saturday.

"I'll be walking but I'll be there," Dana said. "I'm better every day. I've been going to the gym and stuff like that. I need to get these muscles back."

Seneca Valley Superintendent Donald Tylinski stopped by the middle school on Monday to wish Dana well and congratulate her on her progress. Tylinski said he is awed, but not surprised, that Dana's friends and teammates have stepped up to help her complete her project.

"It speaks to the kids today," Tylinski said. "I applaud all of them. And I'm certainly glad to see Dana. She looks great, and we are all so proud of her."

Seneca Valley faculty and staff have also joined in the Run for Dana effort.

High school teacher Al Smith has issued a challenge to all faculty and employees at that school to participate in the run, and middle school visual communications teacher Denny Lemmo made up T-shirts for the event on his own time and provided them at cost.

Schultz, Dana's junior varsity volleyball coach, said the girls in her peer group are "amazing," and desperately looked for ways to help their teammate in the days after the accident.

"I could have asked any of them to do anything and they would have done it," she said.

And Schultz said although Dana has a long way to go in her quest to cross the finish line of her personal recovery, she has no doubt about her prospects.

"If anyone can do it, she can because she's a strong person all around, emotionally, physically and spiritually," she said.

<B>WHAT: </B>The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's annual "Just a Short Run" half marathon<B>WHEN: </B>8 a.m. Saturday<B>WHERE: </B>North Park Boat House<B>BENEFITS: </B>The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is the recipient of entry fees for the race, and Seneca Valley runners have gotten sponsorships with proceeds to go to the International Softball Federation's effort to bring softball back to the Olympics.