Gowanda Small Town Times

On February, 13, the Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team closed out their regular season schedule at Randolph. Coming in, Randolph was ranked #1 in both Section 6 Class C and the CCAA East 1. So, it was a daunting challenge. Randolph cruised by Gowanda in a game that saw them land 17 3-pointers. Down 17-7 after the first quarter, Gowanda was pounded 32-10 in the second bring the halftime score to 49-17. It was much of the same in the second half leading to a final score of 91-37. Leading Gowanda was Quentin Centner with four 3-pointers and a total of 23 points. Tyler Smith was a distant second with 5 points.

On February 15, the Gowanda Varsity girls basketball team ended their regular season hosting Frewsburg in a make-up game. A terrible 1st quarter put Gowanda in an early 26-9 hole that they couldn’t work their way out of. Over the next two quarters, Frewsburg outpaced Gowanda, but only by a 31-26 margin. It was still enough to allow Frewsburg to cruise to a 75-45 victory. The game was marred my many extremely questionable calls many of which went against Gowanda in the first half. One official called Gowanda twice for technical fouls for simply questioning some calls. He also stopped the game at one point to argue with Gowanda fans who were reacting with reserved disapproval to some calls. Gowanda’s total of 45 points was their second highest of the season. Leading Gowanda were Crissa Scanlan and Gao:Wisa:S “Wassy” Stevens with 14 points each. Stevens had two 3-pointers in that effort. Scanlan’s production was limited by being severely mugged every time she touched the ball under the basket forcing her to spend a lot of time shooting foul shots, when fouls were actually called. Aurora Stevens also scored in double digits for Gowanda with 11 points.

February 15 was also the girls bowling Sectionals at Airport Lanes. Gowanda was one of 22 teams in Division 2 to compete. Maryvale took 1st place with 5124 pins. In 14th Place was Gowanda with 4089. Top three bowlers for the Gowanda girls were Aubrey Smuda (119, 149, 183, 158, 167, 171/947), Demetra Spire (127, 136, 168, 129, 124, 195/879) and Sierra (Twoguns 113, 110, 136, 109, 178, 124/770).

On Thursday, February 16, it was the boys bowling Sectionals, again, at Airport Lanes. Taking 1st Place in Division 2 was West Seneca East with 5964 pins. Gowanda finished 16th with 4594. The Gowanda boys were led by Drew Shull (178, 179, 200, 142, 168, 183/1050) and Nicholas Smuda (156, 193, 185, 135, 175, 160/1004).

The 4th Annual Women`s Intersectional Invitational Championships were held on Saturday, February 18. Gowanda was one of 9 schools attending the event. Two Gowanda girls made Top 3 in their weight class. They were Ke’ya Stevens (at 132) taking 2nd Place and Kiernan Quinn (at 145) taking 3rd Place.

On February 15 and 16, the Section VI Boys Swimming Championships / State Qualifiers were held at Alumni Arena in Buffalo, NY. Niagara Wheatfield took 1st Place with a score of 233.6. In 4th Place with a score of 172.0 was Eden. Down at 35th Place was Akron with 64.7. Neither of the two Gowanda boys swimming for Eden were represented in the team scoring.

The Gowanda cheerleaders were scheduled to compete at Iroquois on February 15 and at the Sectionals on February 18. It has now been reported that the Gowanda squad placed 5th at Iroquois and 8th at Starpoint for Section VI D2 Small Varsity.