Gowanda Small Town Times

On Friday, January 20, the Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team traveled to Silver Creek. Early in the season, these two teams met in Gowanda with Silver Creek grabbing a 61-36 victory.

In this game, Gowanda came out slow and Silver Creek was able to score the first ten points in the game. Just over three minutes into the game, John Ondus scored Gowanda’s first two points. Slowly, Gowanda began to work back into the game closing the deficit to 13-20 by the end of the 1st quarter.

Gowanda continued to battle back in the 2nd quarter. Early in the period, they closed to 17-22 before Silver Creek pushed back to open a 28-17 lead. A 9-4 Gowanda surge at the end of the half put the score at 26-32, a one point net gain in the period.

The back and forth continued in quarter three. Gowanda moved to within two at 32-34 before Silver Creek reestablished a 10-point lead. Gowanda mounted another push outscoring Silver Creek 8-2 capped with Tyler Smith scoring with 5 seconds left in the period. The score stood at 44-40 with Gowanda still trailing.

Gowanda continued to battle through the final quarter, but were still behind 52-58 with 1:51 left. From that point, Ondus landed a 3-pointer followed by another two points. Gowanda was just a point down with 28 seconds left to play. Silver Creek controlled the ball through the closing seconds while hitting five of six foul shots as time ran out.

John Ondus led the Gowanda attack with 21 points including three 3-pointers. Quentin Centner had four 3-point baskets towards a total of 18 points for Gowanda. Tyler Smith and Andrew Barlow had 8 and 6 points, respectively. With two points each were Cole Herman and Alex Pachucinski.

In the preliminary game, the Gowanda Jayvee boys won their game. After opening a big lead early in the game, the Jayvees held on for a 65-61 victory.

Also on January 20, the Eden boys swimming team hosted Maryvale. It was Senior Night and the last meet before post-season competition. Gowanda’s Hayden Kaus is one of two Seniors swimming on the team. The other Senior is Eden’s Patrick Schmitz. Also swimming on the team from Gowanda is Christian Merrill, a Junior.

In the meet, Eden edged out Maryvale 64-61 in NISCA scoring. Individually, Christian Merrill finished 6th with a NISCA score of 41. He took 1st Place in the 100M Backstroke (1:05.71) and 2nd Place in the 200M Individual Medley (2:30.63).

Hayden Kaus finished 15th with a NISCA score of 7. He took 2nd Place in the 500M Freestyle (6:26.38). Kaus was also entered in the 200M Freestyle, but was kept off the scoreboard by disqualification.

Kaus and Merrill also teamed up with Brayden Timblin and Patrick Schmitz for two relay races. The team took 1st Place in the 400M Freestyle Relay (3:47.92) and 2nd Place I the 200M Medley Relay (1:57.36). That time was just 47 hundredths of a second off the 1st Place time of 1st 1:56.89.