Gowanda Small Town Times

Football 3-2, 1-2

Friday, September 29

Wilson at Gowanda
- Homecoming -
Gowanda 30, Wilson 49

Girls Volleyball 8-2, 7-1

Monday, September 25

Silver Creek at Gowanda
- original scheduled for Sept. 14 -
Gowanda 3, Silver Creek 0
25-14/25-13/25-14

Tuesday, September 26

Gowanda at Salamanca
Gowanda 3, Salamanca 2
25-14/24-26/25-22/18-25/15-8

Wednesday, September 27

North Collins at Gowanda
Gowanda 3, North Collins 0
25-18/25-7/25-18

Cross Country

Tuesday, September 26

Gowanda at Salamanca
boys
1st CSP
2nd Gowanda
3rd Silver Creek/Forestville
Salamanca incomplete

girls
1st CSP
2nd Gowanda
Salamanca & Silver Creek/Forestville incomplete

Saturday, September 30

McQuaid Invitational [over 100 schools]
Varsity A-2 Small School results
boys Gowanda Top 3
Cashis Montour 67th 17:29.60
Jayson Twoguns 76th 17:35.00
Dustin Mohawk 169th 18:45.10

girls Gowanda Top 3
Calie Hudson 17th 19:22.40
Autumn Pupo 92nd 21:29.30
Alhanna Gabel 263rd 24:41.80

Boys Soccer 0-12, 0-6

Tuesday, September 26

Randolph at Pine Valley/Gowanda
Pine Valley 0, Randolph 8

Thursday, September 28

Pine Valley/Gowanda at Cassadaga Valley-Falconer
Pine Valley 0, Cassadaga Valley 8

Saturday, September 30

Pine Valley/Gowanda at Dunkirk
- non-league -
Pine Valley 0, Dunkirk 7

Girls Soccer 2-8-2, 2-5-2

Monday, September 25

Pine Valley/Gowanda at Ellicottville
Pine Valley 0, Ellicottville 8

Wednesday, September 27

Randolph at Pine Valley/Gowanda
Pine Valley 1, Randolph 2

Friday, September 29

Catt.-Little Valley at Pine Valley/Gowanda
Pine Valley 2, Cattaraugus 1

[photo] Pictured are the 2023 GCS Homecoming Court and Royalty along with their class affiliation (from left to right) Evan Fort (2024), Aubrie Heron (2024), Michael Horth (2024), Alivia Capozzi (2024), ‘King’ Aiden Ackley (2024) [in effigy], ‘Queen’ Ella Luther (2024), ‘Prince’ Chase Bolen (2025), ‘Princess’ Cadence Luther (2027), Kierra Moses (2025), Carter Capozzi (2026), Brair Bartlet (2026) and Kyan Austin (2027).

Spirit Week in Gowanda annually is the run-up to Homecoming. Highlight events include the annual Spirit Parade and the Homecoming Coronation ceremony. For 2023, Spirit Week took on a fairy tale theme. The week kicked off with a very unique event as a new scoreboard was installed at Hillis Field in Gowanda on Monday, September 25.

The Spirit Parade took place on Thursday, September 28 featuring a number of elaborate floats created by various classes and groups in the school. Prizes of $200.00 each are awarded for Most Creative, Best Entertainment, Best Craftmanship and Most Spirited. An Additional $300.00 award goes to the Grand Champion float with all of the above categories being considered. The 2023 winners included Class of 2026 (Creative), Class of 2024 (Entertainment, JV Volleyball (Spirited), Class of 2025 (Craftsmanship) and Class of 2027 (Grand Champion).

On Saturday, the last day of September, It was time for the Homecoming Dance. It was the first social event to be held on the newly high refinished school gym floor. Music for the dance was provided by ‘The Wedding Guys 716’ with DJ Mike also acting as MC for the coronation ceremony. Doing the crowning honors was Student Council member, Alaina Kazmarsic. Senior Class member was only present in effigy after being sidelined with a broken leg. That didn’t prevent him from being named Homecoming King. A complete listing of the Homecoming Court & Royalty is above with their photo.

[photo]Pictured is the new scoreboard installed at Gowanda’s Hillis Field on Monday, September 25. Designed for dual Football/Lacrosse use, shown is the test of the lacrosse functions.

Without a doubt the biggest Gowanda sports news on September 25 is the upgrade to the scoreboard at Hillis Field. Crews worked all day removing the old scoreboard and assembling the new one. One by one the five sections of the new scoreboard were put in place. Once assembled it was time to make the final wiring connections. A little after 5 PM it was time to test the new scoreboard. Using pre-programmed demos of both the football and lacrosse scorekeeping functions, a few final tweaks had everything ready to go.

Delayed a week from the original installation date, the scoreboard install happened to come on Monday of Gowanda Central School Spirit Week. The first “test run” of the scoreboard will come on Thursday the 28th when the Senior and Junior Class girls take the field for the annual Flag Football game directly following the Spirit Parade. Then, on Friday, the Gowanda Pine Valley Football Homecoming game will mark the first official game using the new scoreboard.

Shortly after all was done at Hillis Field, the Gowanda Varsity girls volleyball team was hosting Silver Creek. The game had originally been scheduled for September 14th. It was an easy win for Gowanda sweeping the match 3-0 with games of 25-14, 25-13 and 25-14. With things well in hand, all of the players on the Gowanda bench saw playing time in the game. Full statistics are listed below:

* Elizabeth Green 10 kills, 3 aces, 2 digs

* Corrina John 6 kills 1 ace, 2 digs

* Addison Kota 3 kills 4 aces, 4 digs

* Holland Browning 2 kills, 3 aces, 7 digs

* Aubrie Heron 2 kills, 2 aces

* Cheyanna Pasterneck 1 kill

* Lauren Kelly 1 kill

* Jillian Gernatt 23 assists, 3 digs

* Ella Luther 3 aces, 19 digs

* Tessa Kohn 4 digs

* Sydney Smith 3 digs

* Madilyn Pawlak 2 digs

In other sports news for the 25th, the Pine Valley/Gowanda girls soccer team was at Ellicottville. It was quite the opposite experience from what the volleyball team had. They were outscored 4-0 in both halves of the game losing 8-0. The Ellicottville goalkeeper only faced a single shot in the game while the Pine Valley net was getting barraged. Starting Pine Valley goalkeeper, Destiny Lindquist, was pulled 56 minutes into the game after making 20 stops on 26 shots on goal. Replacing her for the final 24 minutes of the game was Pine Valley’s leading scorer on the season, Sarah Kruszka. Kruszka faced 12 shots on goal making 10 saves.

[photo] Lauren Kelly (#17) goes up for the ball during the September 23 home meeting with Ellicottville. Also seen is (#4) Holland Browning.

Saturday September 23 was an unusually busy day for Gowanda. Three separate Gowanda connected Varsity teams saw action that day.

The only action actually taking place in Gowanda was a meeting of the Gowanda Varsity girls volleyball team and Ellicottville. The event found Gowanda alumni, Andrew Kruszka, assisting with the coaching duties on the Ellicottville bench.

Gowanda opened up Game 1 taking the first two points. The game was tied eight times with both teams having a slight advantage at times. Ellicott gradually pulled ahead to take a lead that peaked at 5 points, 24-19. An exchange of points brought the final to 25-20.

Gowanda roared back in Game 2. They grabbed the first two points of the game and stretched that to an early 7-1 advantage. The Gowanda lead maxed out at 16-8. Ellicottville was able to only make a minor recovery as Gowanda tied the match at 1-1 with a 25-19 win.

In Game 3, again Gowanda took the first two points as they moved into a 7-4 advantage. Ellicottville was unable to capture a lead in the game despite managing to pull into a tie at 9. With the score 17-10 and with Ella Luther serving, Gowanda went on a 6-point run taking the total to 23-10. From there, Gowanda held on for a 25-12 win.

Game 3 was much the same with a tie score at 2, 3, 4,13, 17 and 21 with Gowanda holding a lead that far. After sliding to that 21-all score, Gowanda took a time out to refocus. They won four of the next five points to take the game 25-21 and win the match 3-1.

Once again, the Gowanda statistics list is long and follows below.

* Addison Kota 9 kills, 3 assists, 4 aces, 13 digs

* Holland Browning 8 kills, 3 aces, 12 digs, 1 block

* Corrina John 5 kills, 1 assist

* Aubrie Heron 4 kills, 1 ace, 3 digs, 2 blocks

* Elizabeth Green 3 kills, 8 aces, 3 digs

* Lauren Kelly 3 kills, 2 digs, 2 blocks

* Jillian Gernatt 28 assists, 4 aces, 6 digs

* Ella Luther 1 ace, 29 digs

* Tessa Kohn 10 digs

In other sports news, the Gowanda/Pine Valley Varsity football team was at Cardinal O’Hara high school on Saturday the 23rd for an afternoon game. Cardinal O’Hara is a member of the Monsignor Martin Athletic Association. It appears that this may have been on the order of a scrimmage game as there has been no information as to the score of the game and it isn’t even listed on the Gowanda schedule on the Section 6 website.

Meanwhile, the Pine Valley/Gowanda boys soccer team hosted Dunkirk for a non-league game. It was more of the same for the Pine Valley/Gowanda boys. They lost by an 8-1 final score. No Pine Valley stats were available for the game including who may have scored that one goal or when.

On September 22 the Gowanda Varsity volleyball team was at Sherman for a game against CSP. Game 1 started out close and was tied at 2 and 3. While Gowanda held a temporary lead at 6-3, it was short lived. CSP worked their way back into a tie at 10 and didn’t look back taking the margin to 13-10. The CSP lead peaked at 21-12. Gowanda made a late run, but only got as close as 21-24 before taking a 25-21 loss.

Things tightened up in Game 2. Starting out tied at 1, 3 and 4, CSP held a slight advantage until Gowanda turned a 6-9 deficit into a 12-9 lead. CSP tightened things to 12-11 before a Gowanda went on a 9-2 spurt pushing the lead out to 21-13 they were able to ride that to a 25-16 win tying the match at one game each.

Gowanda opened Game 3 strong taking the first two points. CSP rallied to tie the game at 2, but failed to capture the lead. Gowanda was in control of the game from that point on. The Gowanda advantage maxed out at 17-9. CSP worked back into the game and managing to pull into a tie again at 22 before Gowanda locked down a 25-23 win.

Game 4 continued to be much like the previous one with the exception that now the pressure was on CSP needing the game to tie the match. After an early 2-1 CSP lead on a errant serve, Gowanda held a lead for the rest of he game with two exceptions. CSP was briefly up 11-10 and later at 18-15. After Gowanda pulled back into a tie at 18 they were in front for good. From a tie at 19, Gowanda made a 6-3 push to nail down a 25-22 win in the game for a 3-1 match victory.

Gowanda game stats are as follows:

* Aubrie Heron 9 kills. 2 aces, 3 digs, 3 blocks

* Corrina John 8 kills

* Elizabeth Green 8 kills, 4 aces, 2 digs

* Holland Browning 5 kills, 3 aces, 14 digs, 1 block

* Addison Kota 5 kills, 3 aces, 13 digs, 2 blocks

* Lauren Kelly 3 kills

* Jillian Gernatt 38 assists, 3 digs

* Ella Luther 2 aces, 21 digs

* Sydney Smith 3 digs

* Tessa Kohn 3 digs

In other sports news, the Pine Valley/Gowanda girls soccer team hosted Portville on the 22nd. It was a another shut out loss for the team. They were down 0-3 at halftime. Portville padded their total with another 5 goals in the 2nd half for a 8-0 final score. It was a game in which Pine Valley only managed one shot on goal. No Pine Valley goaltender stats were available.