Gowanda Small Town Times

The Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team saw their first action of 2023 on January 6 hosting Falconer. Gowanda’s Tyler Smith opened the scoring giving them an early 2-0 lead. The 1st quarter was tied at five before John Ondus stuck three times giving Gowanda a 14-7 lead. By the end of the period, Falconer had knotted things at 14.

The 2nd quarter started out close up to a 19-18 Gowanda lead that would be their last of the game. From that point, Falconer went on a tear outscoring Gowanda 14-3. That put the score at 21-32 at halftime.

Gowanda made a slight gain in the 3rd quarter bringing the score to 31-40 going into the final quarter. An 8-2 Gowanda run capped by a Quentin Centner 3-pointer closed the gap to 39-42. Later in the period Gowanda was a single point down at 43-44 and 45-46. At that point, a series of turnovers on errant passes allowed Falconer to strengthen their lead to 47-52. That was enough for Falconer to hold on for the 56-49 win.

Heading up the Gowanda attack was John Ondus (24 points). Also scoring for Gowanda were Tyler Smith (13 points,) and Quentin Centner (12 points).

The Gowanda Varsity girls basketball team was at Pioneer on January 6 for the first day of a 2-day tournament. The first game pitted them against host Pioneer in a non-league game. The Gowanda girls have had problems scoring and a Pioneer team with several tall girls would complicate that further. Numerous times throughout the game Gowanda shots were blocked. Things were particularly problematic in the opening quarter where Pioneer ran up a 13-4 advantage. Gowanda did get more on track for the final three quarters where both teams added 24 points to their score for a 28-37 final. Gowanda moves on to the consolation game on Saturday. Primarily due to the height mismatch, Gowanda relied on keeping Crissa Scanlan close to the basket fighting for rebounds. That resulted in her dominating the Gowanda scoring with 16 points.

In other news, the Eden Varsity boys swimming team, featuring Gowanda’s Hayden Kaus and Christian Merrill was at East Aurora. While the team lost the meet 60-122, the Gowanda boys did quite well. Kaus was 4th overall as a individual and the top Eden swimmer. He totaled 10 points with a Gold in the 200M Freestyle (2:04.31) and a Silver in the 500M Freestyle (6:00.16). Kaus also was on the 2nd Place Eden 200M Relay team (1:44.64) along with Brayden Timblin, Aiden Dietzen and Patrick Schmitz. Gowanda’s Christian Merrill was 7th overall taking Silver in both the 200M Individual Medley (2:32.51) and the 100M Backstroke (1:05.69) for 8 points. Along with Timblin, Dietzen and Schmitz he swam on the Eden 200M Medley Relay taking 2nd Place (1:59.70). Kaus and Merrill teamed up with Logan Gemza and Jacob Zittel on the Eden 400M Freestyle Relay team, again taking 2nd Place (4:08.94).