The name of the game is immediacy and accuracy, all the while keeping a steady hand.

Biathlon Yukon sharpshooters Erin Oliver-Beebe and Jennifer Curtis have the right combination.

The two 16 year olds nabbed five out of a possible six top 10 results in their races at the Canadian Biathlon Championships in Charlo, N.B., from March 21-27.

Oliver-Beebe earned the Yukon's only medal with a bronze in the 7.5-kilometre pursuit in 39 minutes, 18.8 seconds.

"From what I did in the other two races, I was thinking maybe (a bronze) was a possibility,” she said.

Curtis was close behind in the pursuit with a fifth-place finish in 39:57.8.

British Columbia's Sarah Beaudry won gold in 33:18.8 and Alberta's Danielle Vrielink took silver in 37:17.4.

The pursuit consisted of skiing five loops and shooting four bouts of five shots each bout. Each shot was worth a 150-metre penalty loop. The start position was also determined by their finish time in the previous event, the six-km sprint, with the winner of the sprint starting first and the second-place finisher starting five seconds behind, etc.

The format meant the biathletes needed to catch up and pass anyone in front.

"My first two races didn't go quite as well as I would have hoped, but the third race, the pursuit, I think it was because it was the last real race of the season – I just pushed really hard and ended up getting fifth,” Curtis said. "Fitfth was better, considering it was at nationals.”

The two Yukoners fared well after the sprint, an event which included three skiing loops and two shooting bouts, with Oliver-Beebe finishing fourth – only 2.8 seconds off the bronze medal – and Curtis taking ninth.

Oliver-Beebe never looked at narrowly missing a medal as a mental obstacle to overcome.

"It was more exciting, because I knew I was fast enough to do it,” she said.

Each missed shot in the sprint required the biathlete to ski an addition 150-m penalty loop, which meant that, out of a possible 10 shots, a biathlete could potentially have skied an additional 1.5 km.

Both Oliver-Beebe and Curtis improved with each race.

The Yukoners opened the nationals with the 7.5-km individual race.

Oliver-Beebe finished fifth and Curtis placed 12th.

The event called for skiing five loops and shooting four times, five shots per round for a total of 20 shots, and each miss would add a one-minute penalty to their official race time.

The individual event forced the biathletes to balance how fast they can ski each loop and still maintain the ability to calm their heart rate to shoot.

Both Oliver-Beebe and Curtis competed against 20 year olds at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax, N.S., where the pair managed six top 20 finishes over longer distances.

"The races at nationals definitely felt shorter,” Oliver-Beebe said.

"A lot shorter,” Curtis put in.

"It was kind of nice,” Oliver-Beebe added. "It made it so we were able to push ourselves more.”

Yukoner Ryan Burlingame also competed at the Canadian championships, but represented Alberta because he's studying at Augustana University in Camrose.

For Team Alberta, Burlingame placed fifth in the individual and sixth in the sprint with clean shooting on both his bouts.

His final result was a 10th in the pursuit last Saturday.