The final season for the seniors of the 2012 Clayton Greyhounds football team started off with a boom as senior Aaron Adams returned a kickoff for 95 yards, a school record, in the first play of the season against Lutheran North at Gay Field.

The Greyhounds would end up winning by a final score of 46 – 27. The final home game for the seniors in the playoffs also ended with a spectacular play as senior Tyler Walker intercepted a pass from University City’s quarterback and returned it for a touchdown as time expired to seal a district championship for the team since 2005.

The Greyhounds season ended after a loss to Helias Catholic High School in Jefferson City in the state quarterfinals. The Greyhounds final record was 9- 4.

Even though the Greyhounds did not accomplish all of their goals this season, some players thought the season was still a success.

Sophomore Sam Howard, the starting right guard for this year’s team, viewed the season as mostly successful.

“I would say the season was a success, but it also wasn’t because we didn’t make it as far as we wanted to go,” Howard said.

Senior starting outside linebacker James Dillon agreed with Howard.

“I think it went well,” he said. “We’re a good team, we performed well, but I think we should have won state. But we were beaten by a better team.”

Howard said that although they failed to reach the state finals this season, they team definitely saw improvement.

“We made quarterfinals from 3 – 7 last year,” Howard said.

This year’s senior class had an impact on the rest of the team both on the field because of a strong work ethic.

“We worked our [butts] off,” Dillson said. “We worked hard. We tackled well. We wrapped up and we wrapped up pretty hard.”

The future looks positive for the team, but players will have to put the effort to be able to succeed.

“I think we have an unlimited amount of possibilities,” Dillon said. “As long as everybody puts in the work and effort to get better. You only get out as much from the season as much as you put in the offseason. So everybody has to put in the effort in the offseason if they want to go as far as we did this season and even further.”

Although Dillon’s career as a football player at Clayton has ended he views his career fondly.
“It went well,” he said. “I loved every moment of it. Growing as a person, a player, and what-not, I think it went great.”