Gowanda Small Town Times

[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.

[photo] Gowanda’s Addison Kota (#12) goes up for the ball during the September 21 home game versus Cattaraugus-Little Valley

The Gowanda Varsity Lady Panthers hosted the Cattaraugus-Little Valley Lady Timberwolves on September 21. It was as scrappy a battle as one might expect from Panthers and Timberwolves in the wild. Both teams had recently been in very competitive battles with Randolph recently and this was expected to be equally competitive. By every measure, the match could not have been closer as it was pushed to the very limit.

Gowanda got off to a slow start in Game 1. Cattaraugus ran up the first three points before a net serve put Gowanda on the board. The Lady Panthers battled back to take a short lived 4-3 lead. Cattaraugus answered with a slow, steady climb back into a 19-11 advantage. Gowanda was able to close the gap and take a 1-point lead at 23-22 only to have Cattaraugus knot things again at 23. Gowanda took that to 24-24 after Cattaraugus had gone one up with an ace. In the end, a pair of Cattaraugus points gave them a 26-24 win.

In Game 2, again Cattaraugus started with an early lead at 5-1 before Gowanda got into the game. As hard fought as the previous game, this one was tied at 6, 8, 9, 13, 15 and 16 with both teams having the lead for a time. From there a Cattaraugus spurt gained them a 3-point lead at 21-18. They were able to hold the lead from that point. Gowanda did manage to pull back to 23-24, but not avoid a 23-25 loss.

Down 2 games to 0 in the match Gowanda headed into Game 3. Cattaraugus led off with an ace on the way to an early 4-0 lead. Once again Gowanda battled back to tie things at 4. An exchange of errant serves moved the score to 5-5. Cattaraugus opened up a 10-7 lead before Gowanda started their big push into a 13-11 lead of their own. Cattaraugus narrowed that to 13-12 only to have Gowanda mount a 7-point surge that started with a Cattaraugus net serve. The Gowanda lead had grown to 20-12. From that point they were able to hold on for a 25-16 win forcing a fourth game.

Much like previous games, Game 4 started with a slight Cattaraugus lead and was tied several times. The high point of the Cattaraugus lead was at 9-4. Gowanda was finally back ahead to stay at 20-19. Outscoring Cattaraugus 5-1, Gowanda tied the match at 2-2 with a 25-20 win.

Gowanda opened with a Holland Browning ace in Game 5. Cattaraugus answered building a slim 4-2 lead from there that Gowanda reversed to a 6-4 advantage of their own. The lead reversed again to an 8 to 6 Cattaraugus advantage. At that point in Game 5, the team switched ends of the court. The game continued with Gowanda pulling into a tie at 8. The score was also tied at 9 and 10 before Gowanda climbed into a 13-10 lead. Although Cattaraugus was able to pull into a tie at 14 on a very strange call from an official who later admitted he didn’t see what happened, Gowanda was able to nail down the back-to-back points to take the final 16-14 win for a 3-2 win in the match.

Over the past couple of years the one official on this game has always been known for some strange calls. There were certainly a number of bizarre and controversial calls throughout the match, but several people have agreed that, in this case, both teams equally benefited from them.

There were many players that made big contributions to the Gowanda effort. They are listed below.

* Aubrie Heron 9 kills, 3 aces, 15 digs, 5 blocks

*Holland Browning 6 kills, 2 aces, 9 digs, 1 block

*Corrinna John 6 kills, 1 ace, 2 digs, 8 blocks

*Addison Kota 6 kills, 5 aces, 15 digs, 5 blocks

*Lauren Kelly 4 kills, 1 dig, 2 blocks

*Elizabeth Green 1 kill, 3 aces, 2 digs

*Jillian Gernatt 28 assists, 1 ace, 7 digs

*Ella Luther 1 ace, 23 digs

*Tessa Kohn 4 digs

In other sports news, The Pine Valley/Gowanda Varsity boys soccer team’s disappointing season continued at Ellicottville on the 21st. Ellicottville went up 6-0 in the 1st quarter with one player earning a hat trick in the process. Pine Valley was down 9-0 by halftime and 12-0 after three quarters. A scoreless final quarter left Ellicottville with a 12-0 win with nine different players scoring in the game.

On September 20 the Pine Valley/Gowanda Varsity girls soccer team hosted Salamanca. It was another instance of both teams finding few scoring opportunities in a game that ended in a tie. Six minutes into the game, Salamanca took a 1-0 lead. That held for seventeen minutes when Pine Valley’s Sarah Kruszka tied things up with seventeen minutes left in the 1st half. There were no further scores in the game. Pine Valley goalkeeper, faced only 11 shots on goal while the Salamanca goalkeeper was tested only 9 times. Still, for a team that lost four straight games to start the season, getting a win and a tie in the last two outings is certainly progress. That expands to 2 ties and a win in the last 4 games with the loss in that stretch being by a 3-4 score.

On September 19, the Gowanda Varsity girls volleyball was at Randolph. With a scheduled September 14 home game against Silver Creek pushed back to the 25th, it had been a week and a half since Gowanda had seen any action. That showed in this match-up with one of the top teams in the league.

Both teams started out a bit slow with ties at one and two in Game 1. From there Gowanda’s competition drought became evident. Randolph quickly moved out to a 9-2 advantage. Eventually that grew to find Gowanda in a 20-8 hole. Gowanda was able to put together a few short spurts at the end of Game 1, but not enough to avoid a 25-17 loss.

Gowanda gave up the first three points in Game 2 before tying things at five. While they never saw a lead in the game, Gowanda did tie the score again a 10-10. A 6-point run moved Randolph into an 18-12 lead. Outscoring Gowanda in 3-1 spurts, Randolph nailed down a 25-14 win.

Down 2-0 in the match Gowanda put together their best game overall in Game 3. They even held a 4-2 advantage in the early going. While it was a hard fought, close game most of the way, Gowanda fell victim to service errors. Five Gowanda serves into the net plus two that landed out of bounds hampered their chances in the game. Quite often these free points were given up just as Gowanda had evened the score. In the end, giving one of the best teams in the league seven free points left Gowanda a 25-20 loss and a 3-0 loss in the match.

Through it all the Gowanda defense put up a valiant effort as evidenced by the number of bullets they dodged in the match. In all Gowanda players totaled 57 digs. Leading the way were Ella Luther (17 digs), Addison Kota (4 kills, 16 digs, 1 block) and Holland Browning (1 kill, 12 digs). Also having noteworthy stats were Elizabeth Green (6 kills, 1 ace, 4 digs), Corrina John (3 kills, 1 dig, 3 blocks) and Jillian Gernatt (1 kill, 15 assists, 1 ace, 5 digs). Additionally, Lauren Kelly had 1 kill and Tessa Kohn contributed 2 digs.

Meanwhile, at Allegany-Limestone the Gowanda Cross Country teams were facing off against Frewsburg, Falconer/Cassadaga Valley and Cattaraugus-Little Valley in addition to the host team. The Gowanda boys earned took 1st Place with 3rd, 4th and 5th place finishes towards a score of 27. Frewsburg was 2nd with 32. Falconer/Cassadaga, Cattaraugus-Little Valley and Allegany-Limestone did not figure in the scoring. Scoring for Gowanda were Jayson Twoguns (3rd, 17:45), Chase Bolen (4th, 18:06), Dustin Mohawk (5th 18:23), Joseph Fernandez (7th, 18:55) and Cashis Montour (8th, 18:57). Right behind them were Maddox Hudson (9th, 19:38) and Owen Farner (10th, 20:15).

In the girls race, Allegany-Limestone captured 1st place with a score of 25. Gowanda was right behind in 2nd Place with 45 edging out Frewsburg (50 points). Again, Falconer and Cattaraugus-Little Valley were not included in the scoring. Finishing in the Top 5 for Gowanda were Calie Hudson (2nd, 20:25) and Autumn Pupo (5th, 21:30). Also scoring for the Gowanda girls were Karice John (11th, 25:08), Alhanna Gabel (13th, 26:17) and Willow Mentley-Peters (14th, 26:28).

Finally on the 19th the Pine Valley/Gowanda Varsity boys soccer team hosted Portville. It was another tough day for the Pine Valley boys. Down 1-0 after the 1st quarter, they were in a 2-0 hole at halftime. Portville doubled their score in the 3rd quarter. Pine Valley failed to score in the game and Portville padded their score in the final quarter with three more goals for a 7-0 final.