Precision rifle shooter Elisa Boozer is a nine-time Oklahoma state champion and five-time Junior Olympic qualifier. Not only that, the Moore, Oklahoma, high school senior is one of the top high school women shooters in the country. Elisa recently accepted a scholarship offer to attend the Gatton School of Business at four-time NCAA rifle champion University of Kentucky to shoot on the rifle team in fall 2025.
A frequent visitor to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for training, she was awarded the Junior Distinguished Rifle medal in Three-Position Air Rifle. Besides rifle shooting, Elisa also excels academically—she has a 4.0 GPA and was her high school class president. In addition, she spent four years on the varsity tennis team.
Oklahoma Rifle
She got her start in precision rifle competition at the age of 12. Her first coach was Charles Meloy with H&H Precision Shooters. In 2017, Elisa and her father Brandon visited H&H and told Meloy that she was interested in Olympic air rifle competition.
“I took her on as a beginning student, recognizing that only one of a thousand youngsters has the determination and drive to become successful in this difficult sport,” Meloy said.
Elisa highlighted how difficult it was for her family to find people in Oklahoma, due to how tiny the shooting community is in the state. “We were lucky to find Charles Meloy,” she said. Her father echoed the sentiment. “Without Charles, Elisa wouldn’t be doing what she is today.”
Not only was it hard for them to find people at the beginning, it was also a struggle for the Boozers to source equipment and find facilities for Elisa to practice.
“Within the shooting community, that’s probably one of the biggest needs—the equipment to help kids get started,” Brandon told me. “Some sports you can buy a ball and get started. Rifle is not one of those sports.”
Meloy continued to work with Elisa on her rifle shooting over the next few years. More importantly, she continued to work at the sport, upgrading her skills and equipment to enter regional and national competitions.
“Her reputation began to develop in both air rifle and smallbore rifle to the point where she was invited to participate in USA Shooting Olympic Selection Matches,” Meloy said.
During her freshman year in high school, Elisa bought her first Olympic-grade rifle. Her parents split the cost with her. “It was important to us that she put some sweat equity into it,” Brandon said.
For the last three years, Elisa has been coached by Tokyo 2020 silver medalist Lucas Kozeniesky, the head of Team Winning Solutions. Meloy explained “about two years ago, she started outgrowing my abilities.” Now that she has committed to a collegiate team, Elisa will receive her coaching from the Kentucky rifle coaches while continuing with Team Winning Solutions and USA Shooting.
Last year, Elisa helped the Oklahoma Sharpshooters Precision Rifle Team earn the runner-up spot at the National Three-Position Air Rifle Championship, which is the highest the state of Oklahoma has ever placed nationally in a CMP competition. The team began as a club in Shawnee, Oklahoma, with a handful of shooters from around the state that would practice once a month at a gun store range. “We were able to practice and have a little bit of a community together—that’s how it all started,” Elisa said.
Right now, Elisa trains three times a week with the SCATT laser camera system. Her practice sessions can last up to two hours.
“I shoot Eley for practice and I shoot R10s for competition. It can change depending on whether or not my rifle likes a certain lot more than others. One big thing about all my ammo that I shoot is that it’s tested. I can either go up to Colorado or a coach will take my gun for me and will ammo test it. Basically, this is to see which lot of ammo has the tightest group with my rifle.”
Surprisingly, competitions don’t make Elisa nervous. She said she has never been a nervous competitor in a match. It’s during practice that she feels the pressure.
“I put the pressure in my practice and when it gets to the match, I’m like, ‘Well, I already practiced.’ But if I do ever get nervous before a competition, I’ll just affirm to myself, ‘You know what you have put in the time, whatever preparation you have put in will be the result,’” she said.
Precision rifle shooting has aided Elisa in other aspects of her life.
“Rifle shooting in general is such a precise and focused sport, that if there’s any part of you that is not there for every single shot, that shot won’t be a good one. It helps you become very focused on the things that you have in life,” Elisa said. “I’ve always been a hard worker in school. So, for me it reinforced that and provided me with more focus.”
Elisa was recognized in 2024 by Oklahoma state officials—including Gov. Kevin Stitt and lawmakers from the House and Senate—for her accomplishments in representing Oklahoma nationally and internationally. She’s also been named an honorary life member of the Oklahoma Rifle Association.
“The Oklahoma Rifle Association has been so supportive, especially because precision rifle is not a well-known sport in Oklahoma,” she said. “ORA has always gone out of its way to make sure that the Oklahoma Sharpshooters felt noticed for all the effort that we put in the team. ORA also brought us to the capital.”
During the visit to the state capital, Elisa and her group were able to address the issues that rifle student-athletes are encountering to legislators.
“At the capital, we not only were able to educate people about our sport, but also educated them about the problems that we have faced, because nobody really knows what’s going on,” she said.
One of Elisa’s teammates, Chloe Shannon, was facing difficulty from her high school’s administration, receiving unexcused absences for attending rifle matches.
“They actually lobbied to amend the state education laws, so that every school had to release a student as an excused absence if they were representing Oklahoma out of state,” Brandon said. “And that doesn’t just cover rifle, that covers other sports, too. That’s really important.”
When asked about the competitive shooting world helping with her shooting career so far, Elisa enthusiastically shared how tight knit and nice the community is to be around.
“All the parents are nice and all the kids are more than welcome to hang out, talk, learn and teach, which is especially helpful for people that live in states that don’t have much information about this sport,” she said.
Regarding the NRA, Elisa believes it’s a key organization for preserving our Second Amendment rights. She traveled with her father to Dallas last May for the 2024 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits.
“It was a great event. We were in the youth room and it was cool to see everybody come in, as well as to share our sport,” Elisa said. “We walked around the convention area—it was huge and there were tons of people. It was just cool to see everybody interested in the same thing and rallying for our firearm rights.”
Brandon spoke of how the NRA can improve the visibility of the shooting sports.
“The sport itself, these kids are able to do hard things and be great students,” he said. “It’s a neat sport that we can promote, bring visibility to and educate not just the NRA public, but also the public in general.”
Even top-level athletes like Elisa adhere to NRA safety rules like empty chamber indicators on the firing line.
“Safety is all around and they teach it—NRA makes sure everybody knows it and it’s a good structure,” she said.
Future at Kentucky
At the NCAA rifle championship, Kentucky has won the national title three of the last six years. In deciding to commit to Kentucky, Elisa felt she would progress the most as a shooter there and is excited to work with Kentucky Head Coach Harry Mullins.
“He is such a cool guy. He always has good philosophies and he gets into the mental side heavily, which I appreciate,” Elisa said. “You can see how his work grows the team’s rifle shooters.”
As for goals during her first collegiate rifle season, Elisa noted that she will face the same challenges that all student-athletes face during freshman year.
“I don’t want to go in with too much expectation, just because expectation arrival can really kill your scores,” she said. “My dream goal is to be a consistent high-590 shooter and be one of those people that rank in the top eight at NCAA nationals individually. I’m really excited for that, and obviously I hope my team makes the NCAA championship. I’m really excited for the journey and the experience. In the end, I have goals, but to me, the journey is more important. I know that if I do the journey correctly, I’ll get the goals.”
Keep an eye on Elisa Boozer when she makes her Kentucky rifle team debut this fall.
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