Gowanda Small Town Times

Coming off the Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ day holiday, sports team got back in action on Tuesday, October 10. With just two weeks left in the regular Fall Sports schedules things were largely business as usual across the board.

The Gowanda Varsity girls volleyball team, coming off two tough games to end the previous week, had a relatively easy game at Silver Creek. Grabbing the first three points in Game 1, Gowanda quickly built an 11-3 lead. From there, Gowanda continued to power forward extending the lead to 16-4 on the way to a 25-9 victory. The final point came on a Addison Kota ace that had deflected off the top of the net.

Gowanda carried the momentum into Game 2 taking an early 7-0 advantage. The last two points of that run came with back-to-back aces from Holland Browning. Silver Creek finally got on the board with a hard block/kill shot. With things well under control, Gowanda was able to work more players into the rotation giving them valuable game experience. Silver Creek continued to work and was able to get as close as 17-15, but could not do better than that. One unusual moment came with Gowanda ahead 22-16. A Silver Creek dig flew high into the ceiling of the gym and got stuck there forcing a re-serve with a new ball. In the end, Gowanda secured a 25-17 victory in the game going up 2-0 in the match.

Game 3 started out again with a strong Gowanda burst, this time to 5-0. Silver Creek battled back, without gaining a lead, to tie things up at 6 and 7. From there, Gowanda rebuilt their lead to 12-8 and was able to coast to a 25-13 win to sweep the match 3-0.

Leading the Gowanda effort were Aubrie Heron (7 kills, 1 ace, 2 digs), Elizabeth Green (5 kills), Holland Browning (3 kills, 4 aces, 8 digs), Addison Kota (1 kill, 4 aces, 2 digs), Ella Luther (1 kill, 1 aces, 15 digs) and Jillian Gernatt (21 assists, 3 aces). Showing up strong in support were Lauren Kelly (3 kills), Corrina John (2 kills), Sydney Smith (3 digs) and Tessa Kohn (2 digs).

In other sports news, the Gowanda Cross Country teams came off an idle week traveling to Southwestern for a meet that also included Olean and Dunkirk. For the boys, Gowanda (39 pts.) finished in 2nd Place behind Southwestern (25 pts.). Olean was 3rd with 65 pts. Dunkirk had an incomplete team of less than 5 runners and did not figure in the scoring. Top runners for the Gowanda boys were Cashis Montour, Jayson Twoguns and Chase Bolen who finished 5th, 6th and 7th, respectively.

The girls results were similar to the boys with Southwestern finishing in 1st Place with 26 points. Gowanda (52 pts.) just edged out Olean (54 pts.) for 2nd Place. Dunkirk again was incomplete. Two Gowanda girls finished in the Top 10. They were Calie Hudson (2nd) and Autumn Pupo (4th).

Meanwhile at Pine Valley, the Pine Valley/Gowanda Varsity boys soccer team hosted Ellicottville. It was the final home game for the team with one away game left to play in the regular season. Despite a relatively even 1st quarter that left Pine Valley down 1-0, it would not continue that close. Ellicottville scored three additional goals in both the 2nd and 3rd quarters before piling on four more in the 4th. With Pine Valley unable to score, the final score was 11-0.