Gowanda Small Town Times

On January 4th Gowanda Varsity boys basketball team saw the first action in 2024 after the Winter break. They were on the road at Falconer.

As has been typical for Gowanda, they got off to a fast start. Gowanda won the opening tip-off, but the ball went directly to a Falconer player who quickly scored. With an additional point on a foul shot, Falconer had the first three points in the game. Gowanda answered right back. A pair of Quentin Centner scores followed by a Trelin Warrior 3-pointer launched Gowanda into the lead 7-3. The Centner/Warrior combo soon had Gowanda up 13-7 on the way to a 19-9 advantage after one quarter of play.

A stingy 2nd Quarter followed. Both teams scored just 8 points in the period with Gowanda reaching that total with another Warrior 3-point shot, this time from the far right corner near the end of the period. At halftime the score stood at 27-17. Gowanda stumbled in the 3rd Quarter while Falconer came up with their best quarter of the game. With 1:50 left in the quarter, Gowanda had only added another Warrior 3-pointer to their tally while Falconer had gone on a 12-point run. Things were tense with the Gowanda lead squashed down to 30-29. As the clock ticked down to 0:28, Centner landed his first 3-pointer of the game. He had a second 3-point basket in the final quarter as Gowanda went on a 20-4 run that ballooned their lead to 50-33 with 1:02 left in the game. One final Falconer 3-pointer left the final score at 50-36.

Top scorer for Gowanda was Trelin Warrior with 21 points. Not too far behind was Quentin Centner with 13 points. Also scoring for Gowanda were Blake Herman (4 points), Troy Jimerson (4 points), Logan Ruff (3 points) and Seth Geiger (2 points).

Earlier in the day on the 4th, the Gowanda Varsity bowling teams hosted Allegany-Limestone. The Gowanda boys continued their dominant showing on the season rolling over Allegany-Limestone by a series score of 2752-2101. Once again, two Gowanda boys rolled 500-range series including Nicholas Smuda (200-191-172/563) and Morgan Ruff (234-170-151/555). Not far behind were Kory Degenfelder (142-150-166/458) and Gavin Whitcher (147-168-132/447). Bowling just a pair of games were Zachary Hojnacki (143 &114), Aiden Gray (138&114) and Drezden Spire (123 &97).

The Gowanda girls had a much closer match. The won Games 1 and 3, but lost Game 2 for a 3-1 win (2403-2331). Top Gowanda girl was Aubrey Smuda (150-177-199/526). Also bowling full sets were Bailey Shields (136-158-183/477), Makayla Kuras (116-125-138/379) and Sierra Twoguns (130/121/107/358). Bowling a pair of games were Lila Offenbach (153&96) and Tayleigh Williams 100&107). Two girls contributed single games: Natalia Elliott (115) and Emma Golden (92).