Mclouth ? Annie Oakley has nothing on Jefferson County.

Four teenage girls on the Jefferson County Shooting Sports team have such sharp eyes and smooth trigger fingers that they will represent Kansas this summer in two national contests pitting them against the best young air rifle shooters, male and female, from across the country.

“I think I intimidate guys,” said Audrey Deeken, 16, who will participate in both tournaments. “I get next to them, and they flip out.”

Her father, Rod, the team coordinator, agrees.

“Girls may be better than boys (at competitive target shooting) because they’re better focused,” he said. “Boys are more easily distracted. It’s an unfair advantage.”

In fact, sharpshooters of both genders seem to abound in Jefferson County.

Deeken, of McLouth, and Christine Newman, 17, of Oskaloosa, are two of the four shooters chosen to represent Kansas later this month at the National 4-H Shooting Sports Match in Columbia, Mo.

In July, they’ll be joined by teammates Jeni Newman, 15, Oskaloosa, and Ashley Lorenzo, 16, Winchester, as the air rifle team representing Kansas at the National Junior Olympic Three-Position Air Rifle Championship in Bowling Green, Ky.

The team will be joined in Bowling Green by Audrey’s brother, Eric, 18, and Tanner Bristol, 16, McLouth, who qualified individually in small-bore pistol and compound archery events, respectively.

What’s more, seven younger shooters on the team, five boys and two girls, will compete earlier in July at Bowling Green in the International BB Gun Championship Match.

“I think it’s a great honor,” Rod Deeken said. “We’re getting better every year.”

He said shooters on the BB team make it likely the boys will break Jefferson County’s air rifle team as they get older. In the meantime, though, it’s the girls who are hitting the bull’s-eye.

“They’re the ones who’ve done the best, who’ve been the strongest shooters in their program the last few years,” Rod Deeken said.

The Jefferson County team has been around since 1998. In the beginning, said Sara Swoyer, 21, she was vastly outnumbered by boys.

“When I started, there weren’t a whole lot of girls,” she said.

But Swoyer, who now coaches the air rifle team — the upper age limit is 18 — said shooting talent doesn’t rely on gender.

“You don’t have to be the tallest on the team, you don’t have to be the most athletic,” Swoyer said. “It’s your mind, your practice and your skill. Your parents can’t make you a better shot by pouring lots of money into it.”

Swoyer and Rod Deeken said the first concern of the team was training youngsters how to handle guns properly; a group once became distressed during a photo shoot, in fact, that not all the team members were wearing safety glasses, even though no actual shooting was going on.

“There’s never been a kid injured in a 4-H shooting competition,” Rod Deeken said.

The competitors seem to have absorbed the lesson. Asked for their tips on how to shoot well, they first talk about the safety precautions they take.

But it’s clear they enjoy the competition.

“I like competing,” Audrey Deeken said. “I have a lot of friends I’ve competed against over the years.”

So what’s the secret to Jefferson County’s success?

“We make the kids have fun,” Swoyer said. “If they’re not having fun, what’s the point?”