LEWISBURG -- On paper, it would appear that Kathy Fedorjaka is going to have her hands full as she enters her 12th season at Bucknell. Most people see five seniors gone and a roster that has two seniors, one junior, three sophomores and four freshman.

A lot of coaches cringe at numbers like that. Fedorjaka, however, does not look at it that way. Never one to shy away from giving young players key minutes, Fedorjaka is confident her four first-year players can all contribute right away and the sophomores, well, they are way more experienced than most second-year players.

The preseason favorite to win the Patriot League last winter, the Bison went 8-6 in conference play when Amanda Brown missed seven games early with an injury. They pieced it together at the right time and made a run late, winning the league tournament at the end of the season to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, where they met No. 1 seed North Carolina.

It is the experience gained in that push to the Patriot League title that has Fedorjaka confident the Bison will fill in the holes left by the departures of players like Hope Foster and Kesha Champion.

"The experience our sophomores gained last year in the second half, especially in March, is huge," said Fedorjaka, Bucknell's all-time winningest women's coach. "Our sophomores might be as good as some juniors and seniors at other places. You can't match the kind of intensity you see in those games. You can't match it in practice or even in games early in the season. It's just different and a lot of our players have been through it.

"They are proven players."

Now, however, players like Taylor Phillips, Joyce Novacek and Cosima Higham will play larger, more key roles. How quickly they adapt to those roles will likely determine BU's success this winter.

"Sometimes when you have a lot of veterans when you were 12-2 the year before, there might be a level of complacency where they think they can turn it on when they have to," said Fedorjaka. "Young kids are hungry. They want the competition and you don't have the lulls. You might have a confidence thing, but you shouldn't have a complacent night."

The Bison will open the season tonight at George Mason with just 10 players on the roster. Seniors Lauren Schober and Amanda Brown both return for their fourth season in the starting lineup. The pair have a combined 130 starts at Bucknell while the remaining seven players on the roster have started just 19 games.

Expected in the lineup when the Bison take the floor tonight will be junior Le'Le' LeSeur as well as Phillips and Novacek. LeSeur was named to the Patriot League's rookie team two years ago while Novacek and Phillips saw action in a 27 combined games as freshmen last winter.

With only 10 players dressing, nearly all of them will see time on a regular basis, led by sophomore forward Higham, who scored a career-high 10 points in BU's win over Holy Cross in the league final.

The four freshmen will also see significant time and all four of them come from winning programs. Morgan Wrightson and Trisha Crewson were both McDonald's All-American candidates; Alison Nahra led her high school team to back-to-back state titles in Ohio and Christina Chukwuedo was the MVP of the Pittsburgh Roundball Classic

"We only have three upperclassmen, so our freshmen and sophomores are going to see big minutes and will need to play important roles," said Fedorjaka. "Some coaches don't like to play freshmen, but I've always been comfortable with it. We have had at least one start almost every season I've been here."

The players hope to carry the momentum of the strong finish, one where their longest win streak of the season came at the perfect moment, putting them in the NCAA Tournament.

The Bison won three games on the road, including an overtime win over Army in the quarterfinals and then a 12-point victory at Holy Cross in the title game.

"Bringing that energy, and carrying things over from last year, that's going to big," said Brown. "The tournament is what really matters. We can build off (last year) because we have a lot of players who were part of it."

"There is a lot of motivation to go out and do it again," said Novacek. "We need to learn from the down times we had last year and keep up a high level of competition all season. We have to play the way we did in the tournament all season."