Wayne State University Athletics

Rachelle (Malette) Christensen was a four-year cross country letterwinner (2005-08), who became the first runner in school history to earn All-America honors three times.
 
She won 12 races during her Wayne State career including the GLIAC Championship and the NCAA Regional Championship in both her junior and senior years.

As a freshman, she was WSU's top runner in five of six meets, and narrowly missed All-Region honors after placing 17^th.  She had four top-eight finishes including a runner-up performance at the Cross Country Only Nationals.
 
In 2006, Malette finished 14^th at the NCAA National Championships to earn All-America accolades.  It was the second-best female performance in Wayne State history at that time. 
 
As a sophomore, she had three first-place finishes (Tommy Titan Invitational, Paul Short Invitational and Michigan Intercollegiate) and led the Warriors in every race.  Malette earned First Team All-GLIAC accolades with a second-place finish then claimed Great Lakes All-Region honors after placing fourth at the NCAA Regionals (top-15 are named All-Region) .
 
As a junior she earned All-America honors by recording a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Championship meet, the best finish ever by a WSU women's cross country runner.  Malette won four of the five regular-season meets she competed in.  She then proceeded to claim First Team All-GLIAC honors by winning the conference meet by an astounding 35 seconds.  Two weeks later, Malette was the NCAA Regional Individual Champion by nearly 20 seconds. 
 
In addition, she received the Deans' Award for having the highest cumulative grade-point average among student-athletes enrolled in the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.  Malette was selected GLIAC Women's Cross Country Runner of the Week three times during the 2007 campaign.
 
In her senior campaign, Malette won four of the six races she ran prior to the national championship meet, while finishing second in the other two competitions.  At the NCAA Championship meet, she became the first three-time All-American in school history with a sixth-place finish.

The 2007 and 2008 GLIAC Women's Cross Country Athlete of the Year, Malette helped the Warriors to back-to-back second-place team finishes at the conference meet, the best finishes in school history.

A three-time member of the GLIAC All-Academic Team, Malette was a 2007 GLIAC Fall Sports Commissioner's Award recipient.  She was also voted to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Cross Country/Track First Team for the 2007-08 academic year and was a two-time U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Scholar Athlete.

A graduate of the WSU Pharmacy school, the Windsor, Ont., native also served on the Wayne State Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and was the SAAC President for the 2008-09 academic year.