Gowanda Small Town Times

On Friday, January 27, the Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team hosted Portville. Gowanda started out slow allowing Portville to move into an early 8-3 lead. Gowanda regrouped and worked back into the lead. A Quentin Centner 3-pointer with six seconds left in the 1st quarter gave them a 16-12 advantage at that point.

Gowanda began to string baskets together regularly in the 2nd quarter. Centner ran up ten points in the period helping Gowanda to outpace Portville 18-12 towards a 34-24 halftime score.

The teams both fought hard in the 3rd quarter. It was Gowanda’s weakest scoring quarter allowing Portville to edge Gowanda by a point in the period. That brought the score to 45-36 with Gowanda in control.

Gowanda’s 4th quarter was their best effort of the game. They outscored Portville 12-4 in the closing minutes to nail down a 66-49 win. It was their first victory league competition.

Quentin Centner had three 3-pointers and led Gowanda with 19 points. John Ondus added another 17 points. Also in double digits were Tyler Smith (12 points) and Blake Herman (10 points). Andrew Barlow, Cole Herman. Alex Pachucinski and Victor Rivera also scored for Gowanda.

Also on Friday, the Gowanda boys and girls bowling teams were at Genesee Valley. Regarding the event, the Gowanda coach commented “The bowling teams were on Friday night!”. Even with Gavin Whitcher rolling his season high game & series and Drezden Spire having his season high game, Gowanda fell short 0-4 to a high-powered Genesee Valley team.

The following Gowanda boys all had very strong series: Drew Shull (200-235-189/624), Gavin Whitcher (181-236-168/585) and Nicholas Smuda (170-185-188/543). Also bowling all three games for Gowanda were Drezden Spire (134-125-208/467) and Kory Degenfelder (127-118-130/375). Also participating for the Gowanda boys were Zachary Hojnacki (241/2 games) and Aiden Gray (113 game).

The Gowanda girls won their match 4-0. Aubrey Smuda (112-192-168/472) led the Gowanda girls while bowling her season high game and series. With series in the 300s were Cameron Clark (117-152-120/389) and Sierra Twoguns (96-102-126/324). Gowanda girls the 200s were Natalia Elliott (100-94-97/291), Emma Golden (106-79-101/286) and Makayla Kuras (89-96-77/262). Those scores represent season high series for both Elliott and Golden.