Gowanda Small Town Times

We see the Winter Sports season beginning to wind down on February 2. The Gowanda bowling teams saw their last action of the regular season and the basketball teams are into the last few games as well.

The Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team traveled to Falconer on the 2nd. It was another case of a slow start standing in the way of success. Falconer quickly ran up eleven points in the 1st quarter before Gowanda got on the board. Even scoring from that point took the score to 21-11 by the end of the period. That would be a hole that was just a bit too deep to climb out of. A quick start for Gowanda in the 2nd quarter allowed them to make a small gain to 24-15 before being virtually shut down by Falconer. A 14-2 blitz by Falconer had them way out in front, 38-17 at halftime.

The 3rd quarter was Gowanda’s best of the game. After slipping to 50-24, Gowanda had a surge of their own. A Quentin Centner 8-point effort, including a pair of 3-pointers let the way. Victor Rivera contributed 4 points in the 3rd quarter including a basket with 5 seconds left. An early 4th quarter push by Gowanda closed the gap to 54-45. They had improved that to 56-52 as the clock showed 2:57 left in the period. That was as close as Gowanda could get as Falconer reinforced their lead hitting on 5 of 6 foul shots in the final two minutes of the game. Final score in the game was 63-52.

Quentin Centner topped Gowanda scorers with 22 points. Also scoring in double digits with 11 points was Victor Rivera. Rounding out the Gowanda scoring were Blake Herman (7 points), John Ondus (5 points), Ben VanNote (3 points), Cole Herman (2 points) and Tyler Smith (2 points).

The Gowanda boys and girls bowling teams closed out their regular season at Ellicottville. Both team finished the regular season on a winning note.

The boys cruised by Ellicottville 4-0. Leading the Gowanda boys was Gavin Whitcher (174-199-190/563). Four boys rolled in the 400s. They were Kory Degenfelder (129-149-168/446), Nicholas Smuda (162-161-134/437), Drew Shull (123-163-134/420) and Aiden Gray (145-136-131/412). Two bowlers split a series including Drezden Spire (two games/280), and Zachary Hojnacki (1 game/119). The boys finished 3rd in their division with a 12-4 record.

The Gowanda girls missed a 4-0 win by six pins. The dropped their first game 652-658. Top bowler for the Gowanda girls was Demetra Spire (119-134-200/453) In the 300s were Aubrey Smuda (138-105-130/373), Cameron Clark (115-113-138/366) and Sierra Twoguns (110-129-116/355). Emma Golden had a 293 series. Also bowling for the Gowanda girls were Natalia Elliott (2 games/144) and Makayla Kuras (1 game/100). The 3-1 win evened the girls season record at 7-7.