in the next few years. In fact, Sam Lyon, a sophomore on varsity, says, "This guarantees that we'll win a CVC championship before my class graduates." While that claim is a bit audacious, the team certainly will be very good if all of the young athletes on the team keep on working towards that goal. Leadership isn't much of a concern with this young team, since all five of their seniors have been playing for North every year since they were freshmen. However, as with any young team there are still some problems. Nick Jorgenson, a senior, comments that, "The team struggles with immaturity sometimes." As the season continues the younger players will gain more experience, and hopefully that will help them grow. This is why it helps to have those experienced seniors on the team; they help alleviate the problems the players might face as they go through the growing pains of playing varsity basketball against the best basketball players in the city. The Junior Varsity basketball team is also young with only four juniors out of the fourteen players on the team. The rest of the players are all freshmen or sophomores, so the whole basketball program is young, which means that once these players mature they will be much better in years to come. So far this season, the basketball team has been doing quite well, and they always appreciate it when people came out to watch their games. Although they try their hardest every game, when fellow students are there to support them the players put in the extra effort needed to come away from a game with a victory. This doesn't apply to just home games either; the players love it when their friends make the trip to another school to support them there, in a hostile environment. Anthony Davis, a sophomore on
the varsity team, says, "It feels good to have people watching us play and cheering us on." Almost all of their conference games are in town, with an exception for a trip to Redmond, which means it shouldn't be hard to go to their conference games and support the North players as they try to make it to the play-offs. The basketball team plays on Tuesdays and Fridays and home games alternate between the two days so come to the basketball games and watch the Viking team! The Viking basketball team has a good shot at making it to the playoffs this year. The top four teams go, and North looks like they could be one of those four. The Vikings play defense quite well, and are one of the most athletic teams in the conference. The conference isn't extremely deep this year, and the Vikings' style of play matches up well with them. North is led by sophomore Avry Holmes, who was featured in the Statesman Journal's article about local basketball athletes to watch this year, and he consistently has been leading the team in scoring and also functions as a leader despite being a sophomore. The Statesman Journal picked the team to finish fourth in the conference, which would put them in the last play-off spot. Although they were picked to finish in that spot, games are won on the basketball court, not by what a journalist has to say about the team. In order to finish fourth, or if possible higher, the team will have to mold together into a cohesive unit that works together to defeat their opponents. If the team develops better than originally thought, the Vikings could take third place, or even second. But the opposite is true as well; if the younger players can't handle the pressure the Vikings could drop down to fifth or sixth. The team really wants to get to the playoffs, so the chances of them dropping a few spots isn't very likely, and if the players continue their stellar game they could be playoff bound