Tradition. Family. Success.

Softball head coach Meadow McWhorter has done a lot of winning while at the helm for the Saints. So it would only make sense that her expectations were set high heading into the 2015 regular season.

The team finished the regular season 14-6 in South Region play and 35-11 overall. Not a bad follow-up, considering the Saints were fresh off an NWAC championship in 2014 but also had lost many of its top players, due to graduation.

According to McWhorter, many assumed this year’s squad would fall short of her past success. Instead, the Saints battled some early setbacks and came all the way back to finish the as NWAC runners-up, second in the championship tourney.

The Saints showed heart, toughness, and were “resilient,” she said.

Midway through the season, the Saints squared off with rival Southwestern Oregon CC (who would finish 14-6 in South play, 35-11 overall) in Coos Bay. The Saints dropped both tight games, 1-0 and 6-5. This didn’t leave a nice taste in McWhorter’s mouth.

“I was really hard on them, probably the hardest I have ever been,” said McWhorter of her postgame remarks to her players. That’s saying something, as she has led the Saints for 13 years, racking up four championships in the past seven seasons alone.

McWhorter said the players’ response made that incident quite the turning point in the season.

“We started picking it up and winning games late and all of our home games. That’s when I started to realize this team has fight,” she said.

The Saints would win 17 of 21 games, and qualified as the No. 4 overall seed heading into this year’s NWAC tournament at Delta Park in north Portland.

Mt. Hood lost in second-round action against Southwestern Oregon 5-2 on May 15, then rebounded to win five straight games before falling to Spokane CC in the championship showdown.

“It was a heck of a weekend,” said McWhorter. “We got everything we could’ve gotten out of our players this year.”

With a new crop of freshmen coming in next season and the experience of her soon-to-be-sophomores, Mt. Hood should again be a team that is taken seriously, she said.

As long as McWhorter is leading the way, success seems sure to follow the Saints – given her career record of 418 wins and 142 losses, along with those four championship trophies.