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.

The Gowanda Varsity girls basketball team hosted Portville on Thursday, January 19. As has happened several times in the past, Gowanda got off to a slow start and put themselves into a hole that was impossible to climb out of. It was worst 1st quarter of the season for Gowanda going scoreless until there were just eight seconds left in the period. At that point Crissa Scanlan hit the second of two free throws for Gowanda’s first point. Although neither team scored for the first minute and a half of the game, Portville was still able to pile up a 16-1 lead going into the 2nd quarter. In a very unproductive 2nd period, Portville extended their lead, but only outpaced Gowanda by an 8-4 margin.

Gowanda got on track in the 2nd half. It was hardest fought quarter of the game with Gowanda just barely falling short 13-15 as Portville scored in the closing seconds. Gowanda added another 12 points to their score in the final quarter while Portville played a lot of their bench and was held to five points. That left the final score 44-30. The Portville win moved their record to 9-1.

Chloe Luther topped the Gowanda scoring with 12 points. Second in scoring for Gowanda, with 9 points, was Crissa Scanlan. Gao:Wisa:s “Wassy” Stevens and Lily Scanlan each had a lone 3-point basket in the game. That made this another of a long string of games where Scanlan’s only points in a game were a single 3-pointer. Aurora Stevens also scored for Gowanda.

The Gowanda boys and girls bowling teams were at Salamanca on the 19th. The boys record slipped to 8-3 with a 0-4 loss (859-1224/898-1073/850-964). Drew Shull (232-239-199/670) led the effort for the Gowanda boys. For Shull this marked his all time high games and series. Bowling in the 400s for Gowanda were Drezden Spire (22-131-163/416) and Nicholas Smuda (42-145-123/410). Gavin Whitcher had games of 138, 132 and 120 for a 390 series. Three other Gowanda boys bowled in two of three games. Along with their 2-game totals, they were Zachary Hojnacki (252), Kory Degenfelder (240) and Aiden Gray (229).

The girls bowling team managed to win their last game 715-703 while losing the match 1-3. In games 1 and 2, they fell just short by scores of 732-753 and 691-707. Rolling into the 400s were Demitra Spire (124-172-167/463) and Aubrey Smuda 170-127-160/457. Also bowling for the Gowanda girls were Sierra Twoguns (131-108-109/348), Cameron Clark (124-98-107/329) and Natalia Elliott (90-93-79/262).

Finally, January 19 found the Gowanda wrestling team at Springville falling short 33-39. Three Gowanda wrestlers earned wins by pin in the meet. They were Jayden Fish (118) over Riley Hjemdahl-Monsen, Nathan Warrior (145) over Zach Hughes and Michael Horth (152) over Bailey Oatman. Greg Reid (126) won his match over Aiden Morris by a 6-1 decision. Two wrestlers were awarded wins for Gowanda by forfeit. They were Nakotah Jackson (102) and Brendin Diebel (110).

On Wednesday, January 18, the Gowanda wrestling team hosted Maple Grove. The meet ended in a 25-36 loss for Gowanda with several matches decided by forfeit. Brendin Diebel (102) and Jayden Fish (118) accepted forfeit wins for Gowanda while the team gave up forfeits at 160 and 215. Double Forfeits were recorded at 172 and 189.

Gowanda’s Nathan Warrior (145) pinned Jeremy Danielson in 2:49. Two other Gowanda wrestlers had wins by decision. They were Michael Horth (152) over Daniel Quattrone (10-0 Major Decision) and Greg Reid (126) over Jaxon Kraft (6-0 Decision).

The Gowanda wrestlers will close out their regular season on Saturday, January 21, hosting the annual Gowanda Round Robin Wrestling Tournament. In addition to Gowanda, the following schools are expect to attend: Dunkirk, Falconer-Cassadaga Valley, Franklinville, Fredonia, Frewsburg, Lockport, Maple Grove, North Tonawanda, Olean-Alleghany Limestone, Randolph, Salamanca, St Francis and Warsaw.

On January 17, the Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team hosted 1st Place Randolph. Despite a valiant effort, Gowanda fell short in the game while John Ondus crossed the 1,000-point milestone.

The 1st quarter started out close with the teams tied at 5 and Gowanda taking a 1-point lead at 16-15 and 18-17. From there, Randolph closed out the period with a 7-point burst taking the score to 18-24. After scoring four points early in the 2nd period, the Gowanda offense went dormant. The biggest factor in that was a string of turnovers. It was not until the very end of the period that John Ondus scored Gowanda’s 6th point of the quarter. Meanwhile, Randolph had built up a 39-24 advantage.

Gowanda came out in the 3rd quarter with their best effort of the game scoring twenty points. They still lost ground with Randolph adding twenty-four to their score at the same time. With the score standing at 63-46 and Randolph in control, things slowed down for both teams in the final quarter. Randolph still won the period, but only by a 13-11 margin.

Still, there was one major Gowanda highlight in that last quarter. With 7:22 left in the game, John Ondus was at the foul line. He hit both of a pair of foul shots taking him to the 1,000-point mark in his career. The game was briefly stopped while he was given a banner indicating that accomplishment and a few photos were taken. Gowanda coach, Lucas Brawdy, was quoted as saying “It’s a big accomplishment” noting that Ondus was “one of three people at Gowanda to get 1,000 points” in their career.

Ondus landed a trio of 3-point baskets on the night on the way to lead Gowanda scoring with 19 points. Two players also reached double-digits for Gowanda. They were Quentin Centner (12 points) and Blake Herman (10 points). Herman had two 3-pointers in the game while Centner had one. All of those came in the 1st quarter. Also scoring for Gowanda, with eight points each, were Tyler Smith and Alex Pachucinski.

In other sports news, the Eden boys swimming team was at Iroquois on the 17th. While the team lost the meet 35-63, the Gowanda members of the team, Christian Merrill and Hayden Kaus, did well.

Merrill and Patrick Schmitz were the top two Eden swimmers coming in tied for 6th overall individually with a pair of silver finishes each. For Christian Merrill, those came in the 200M Individual Medley (2:32.96) and the 100M Backstroke (1:06.12) In the backstroke event the 1st Place time was 1:04.82, just 1.30 seconds better than Merrill’s time.

Right behind in the individual results was Hayden Kaus. He finished in 8th Place with a silver and a bronze. The 2nd Place finish came in the 200M Freestyle (2:11.64) and 3rd Place came in the 100M Butterfly (1:16.05).

The Eden team only had one relay team come in with a win at the meet, but both Merrill and Kaus were on that team. Along with Brayden Timblin and Patrick Schmitz, Eden took gold in the 400M Freestyle Relay in 3:55.88.

Gowanda was represented at the 54th Annual Franklinville Invitational Wrestling Tournament on January 13 and 14. The event was held at the Ten Broeck Academy in Franklinville, New York. While not competing above the 145 weight class, Gowanda still managed to finish 4th as a team with a score of 140. That was just behind Springville (143). Portville claimed 1st Place with 173.

Gowanda’s Nakotah Jackson (102) and Michael Horth (145) both came away with 1st Place in their weight class. After a Quarterfinal bye, Jackson pinned Jonathan Tidd (Olean-Allegany Limestone, 1:45) and Maxwell Yount (East Aurora-Holland, 4:00). In the Quarterfinal, Horth pinned Alex Kuhn (East Aurora-Holland) in 1:36. He went on to pin Dakota Miller (Franklinville, 5:45) in the semifinal. In the 1st Place match, Horth faced Gowanda teammate, Nathan Warrior, and took a 24-1 Major Decision.

Before finishing in 2nd Place at 145, Warrior had won by pin in both the Quarterfinals and Semifinals. Those victories came against Hamza Allami (Charter School for Applied Technologies, 0:39) and Caine DeGrolier (Olean-Alleghany Limestone, 1:02).

Gowanda’s Kaleb Smith (138) earned a 3rd Place finish. He won a 9-5 decision in the Quarterfinal over Abdelraheem Ahmed (Lackawanna) before losing a 12-1 Major Decision to Griffin McKinsey (Springville) in the Semifinal. In the Consolation round, Smith won a 15-7 Major decision over Zack Hughes (Springville) before pinning Mohamed Mohamed (Lackawanna, 0:15) to take 3rd Place

Earning individual 4th Place finishes for Gowanda were Greg Reid (118) and Jayson Twoguns (126). Darrin Sherlock (118) and Brayden Lee (132) both ended up in 6th Place while adding 6 points and 7 points, respectively, to Gowanda’s team total. Also wrestling for Gowanda was Faolon Quinn (126) who earned 5 points for the team.