Nihira Runner-Up at World Junior Curling Championships

Fourth
Momoha
Tabata

SKIP
Miku
Nihira

Second
Sae
Yamamoto

Lead
Mikoto
Nakajima

Miku Nihira (Sapporo, JPN) lost 10-3 to Xenia Schwaller (Zurich, SUI) in the Final of the World Junior Curling Championships, held February 17 - 24 in Lohja, Finland. To advance to the championship game, Nihira won 8-5 over Torhild Bjoernstad (Oppdal, NOR) in the semifinals

Nihira finished 7-2 in the 10-team qualifying round. . In their opening game, Nihira defeated Moa Dryburgh (Stockholm, SWE) 7-6, then won 8-5 against Robyn Munro (Stirling, SCO) and 9-7 against Sara Messenzehl (Fuessen, GER). Nihira went on to lose 6-3 against Schwaller. Nihira lost 7-5 to Myla Plett (Sherwood Park, CAN) where Nihira responded with a 7-5 win over Zhuo Han (HARBIN, CHN). Nihira won 6-3 against Bjoernstad, then won 8-2 against Korea's Hanbyeol Park and 9-1 against Ilknur Urusan (Erzurum, TUR) in their final qualifying round match.

With their runner-up finish at the World Junior Curling Championships, Nihira take home 24.750 world rankings points. Nihira move up 7 spots after posting a net gain of 21 points improving upon their best 8 results so far this season, ranking 28th overall with 114.000 total points on the World Ranking Standings. Nihira ranks 28th overall on the Year-to-Date rankings with 114.000 points earned so far this season.

RECORD	W	L	T	PCT	HMR	STL	1PT	EEH	EES
2024	50	25	0	0.667	18-1	12-5	6-1	3-1	0-0

SCORING	ENDs	PF	PA	PF/G	PA/G	+/-	EF/G	EA/G	PF/E	PA/E	BE/G
2024	572	446	341	7.80	5.96	1.84	4.77	4.06	1.63	1.47	1.17

WITH HAMMER	ENDs	PF	PA	BE	4s	3s	2s	PF/E	PA/E	HE	SD
2024	268	288	96	28	6-3	19-5	53-10	1.07	0.36	0.33	0.25

WITHOUT HAMMER	ENDs	PF	PA	BE	4s	3s	2s	PF/E	PA/E	FE	SE
2024	304	158	245	39	2-3	11-9	30-52	0.52	0.81	0.61	0.33

Brendan Bottcher (photo: Stan Fong) is moving on from now former teammates Marc Kennedy, Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert, announced Tuesday.

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