Gowanda Small Town Times

On Tuesday, Jan. 31, the Gowanda Varsity girls basketball team was at Falconer. Earlier in the season, the Gowanda meeting of the two teams ended in a 41-54 Gowanda loss in the first league game of the season. Since then Falconer has only lost one CCAA East divisional game. That was at Cassadaga Valley, a team that Gowanda beat at home.

The game was scoreless for almost three minutes before Crissa Scanlan opened the scoring for Gowanda. A subsequent foul shot had them up 3-0. It would take Falconer until there was just 2:20 left in the 1st quarter to get their first points. They were still able to build a 6-3 lead by the end of the period.

In the 2nd period, it was Cianna Hidalgo’s pair of baskets that helped Gowanda tie things at 7. Falconer rallied from there. A final basket with 11 seconds left in the half boosted the Falconer lead to 14-9.

The 3rd period opened with Aurora Steven scoring twice for Gowanda closing the Gowanda deficit to 13-14. Again Falconer rallied. This time taking their advantage to 22-13. A Gowanda surge late in the quarter brought them to four points off the lead at 20-24.

The final quarter was closely contested and Gowanda was within three points with 4:18 left in the game. Scanlan, under the Falconer basket, went up to block a shot. On video, it seems clear that she cleanly caught the top of the ball, but was still called for a foul. When the Gowanda coach questioned the call, the official relied “I called it. Let’s not talk about it”. Falconer was then given three technical foul shots, all of which were made. Thirty-four seconds later, at 3:44, there was a scramble for a loose ball between Hidalgo and Falconer star, Dani Krenzer. While it looked like Hidalgo got to the ball first and both girls were equally involved in terms of contact. Hildago was charged with a critical foul. At that point she had fouled out of the game forcing Gowanda to play four against five for the final 3-½ minutes. During that time, Falconer outpaced Gowanda 9-4 padding their victory margin to 40-29.

Leading the Gowanda effort was Aurora Stevens with 10 points, including Gowanda’s only 3-pointer of the game. Also contributing to the Gowanda total were Crissa Scanlan (7 points), Chloe Luther (6 points) and Cece Rivera (6 points).