Rachel Blankenship or Rachel Thun Ríos (born September 2, 1995),

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth ...

Thun, is an American soccer player who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for Fortuna Tulsa in the

Women's Premier Soccer League The Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL) is an amateur women's soccer league in the United States and Canada. It is the top amateur league for women's soccer in the United States soccer pyramid, below only National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) ...

and for the Puerto Rico national team.

Career

Blankenship played

college soccer College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and Philippines, the Philippines. Th ...

at the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin ...

from 2014 to 2017. For the 2014 season, she was named as the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA ...

Rookie of the Year. In 2016, she was named the American Athletic Conference Midfielder of the Year. She was selected to the American Athletic Conference First Team All-Conference in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. She is the first player in TU history to be tabbed to the American Athletic Conference First Team all four years. Blankenship was Tulsa's Offensive Player of the Year in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. She was also the recipient of The National Academic Momentum Award in 2016, and was awarded The University of Tulsa Ultimate Team Award in 2017 and 2018. Rachel was named to the American Athletic Conference All-Academic Team in 2015, 2016, and 2017 and was a nominee for the Senior CLASS Award in 2017. She joined Fortuna Tulsa in 2018.

International career

Blankenship's maternal grandparents, the Ríos family, are from Puerto Rico. Having been born in Oklahoma City, she was therefore eligible to play for the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

. She chose the latter in 2017. She played for Puerto Rico at

2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship qualification The 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship qualification is a women's football competition which decides the participating teams of the 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship. A total of eight teams played in the final tournament, which was held in the U ...

. Blankenship traveled to Uruguay in June of 2021 to play in friendly matches against the Uruguay National Team. She was accompanied by her husband and 6 month old daughter and is the first mother to play for the Puerto Rican National Team.

Personal life

She married Malachi Blankenship in June 2017 and has two children, River (born November 12, 2020) and Barek (born September 25, 2022). Blankenship currently holds the position as Assistant Coach for The University of Tulsa Women's Soccer Team in Tulsa, Oklahoma where she and her husband are active members of their church and the Tulsa community.

References

External links

Tulsa Golden Hurricane bio
1995 births Living people Puerto Rican women's footballers Puerto Rico women's international footballers Sportspeople from Oklahoma City American sportspeople of Puerto Rican descent American women's soccer players Soccer players from Oklahoma Women's association football midfielders Tulsa Golden Hurricane women's soccer players {{US-women-footy-bio-stub