With four starters back, the Northside girl’s basketball team is looking to improve on last year's fifth place finish in the Blue Ridge District.

Returning starters include Emily Rawlings (Jr, 5-5, G), Alexis Shepherd (Jr, 5-6, G), Melanie Mirzayan (Jr, 5-7, G) and Andrea Elrod (Sr, 5-5, G).

Other Lady Vikings include Taylor Carter (Soph, 5-4, G), Karlie Pope (Soph, 5-5, G), April Beckner (Jr, 5-4, G), Katie Tomlinson (Sr, 5-5, F), Carla Anderson (Soph, 5-9, F), Khadijah Fountain (Sr,  5-8, F) Emma Wade (Jr, 5-4, G) and Briana Pinero (Sr, 5-5, G).

Carter, Pope and Anderson are expected to be the top players to make an impact this season.

"We are still a very young team, seniors are only role players," said head coach Trayce Coe, who saw her team go 2-20 overall last year. "We are hoping to see a great improvement from last year (that would mean that we actually learned something!)"

As for the Lady Vikings strong and weak points, Coe replied, "We are a very quick team, but do we have the fundamentals down to be able to use it to our advantage?  Our youth is a weakness; we still are even learning the game of basketball."

Northside sees its top game of the season as being Lord Botetourt on Jan. 20, 2012 and Feb. 7. "They are always at the top," noted Coe.

We are excited to have so many returning players this season and are looking forward to winning some games this year," Coe said.

The Vikings open their season on Tuesday, Nov. 29, when they host Hidden Valley.