Macie Page, a Baylor sophomore, holds the title for the Ladies World Champion in helice shooting, and is currently training for Nationals in June.
Helice shooting is more of a specialized discipline where shooters aim at rotating, randomly launched targets, simulating live bird hunting. While Macie started shooting helice at fourteen years old, her interest in the sport began way before that.
“Even at 3 years old, she always wanted to come with me to the range. She would bug me, saying ‘When can I start shooting, when can I start shooting?” said Clinton Page, her father and coach.
Clinton shot competitively when Macie was young, and now coaches her back in her hometown gun club in Dallas.
“One of the biggest reasons I love it is just the relationship I have with my Dad from it. I’ve grown up doing it with him and have gotten to travel all over the world, and we are super close because of it,” Macie said.
At twelve, Macie quit all other sports to focus on shooting. Clinton said that she was “somewhat of a natural” at helice when she first tried it two years after that.
“I used to be able to beat her on a regular basis, and now it's kinda hard, so,” he said, laughing. “Along the way, she really figured out how to isolate herself from the pressure and use the pressure to be able to compete at a very high level.”
Macie won the Ladies National Championship in 2021, 2022, and 2023 and the Junior National Championship in 2023. While she placed 2nd in Ladies at Worlds in 2022, she won 1st in 2024 and placed 2nd overall in the Open category. Her trick to success? Silencing her mind.
“When I’m shooting my best, it’s just like nothing is going through my mind. It’s just one target at a time, cause I’ll start thinking ahead if I’ve missed. So I really try to think of nothing in my head and see where it goes from there,” she said.
Even though she grew up around shooting, she still finds that some people are surprised to see a college-aged girl at competitions.
“It’s not expected when people don’t know me and they ask what I do for fun, and I think a lot of the time it’s like ‘Oh, you shoot guns. That’s super interesting!’ because a lot of girls my age don’t do that,” she said. “But it’s open to anyone. It’s not just men, or older men. Really, anyone can do it.”
Eventually, she may try out another discipline called bunker trap, which is in the Olympics. But for now, she is focusing on perfecting helice, with Nationals is right around the corner in June and 2025 Worlds in August.
This story was produced by Baylor Student Abbey Ferguson and is part of the Baylor University Student Journalism Collaboration with KWBU.
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