2023-24 Preseason All-SAC Teams
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Carson-Newman placed three players on the South Atlantic Conference preseason teams, as announced by the league on Thursday.
Braelyn Wykle (Greeneville, Tenn.) and Lindsey Taylor (Maryville, Tenn.) each earned first-team honors, while Campbell Penland (Sevierville, Tenn.) was named to the third team.
This season makes for a sixth straight year in which the Lady Eagles have placed at least two players on the preseason All-SAC teams.
Carson-Newman and Catawba tied for the most preseason SAC selections with three each, two of which came on the first team.
For the fourth year in a row, Braelyn Wykle (Greeneville, Tenn.) earns preseason First-Team All-SAC honors. The honor is the 33rd of her career and the 19th from the South Atlantic Conference. The 4-time All-SAC First-Team player averaged 20.8 points per game last season, shooting an impressive 48.5% from the field and 43.4% from beyond the arc. Those numbers allowed her to achieve WBCA Honorable Mention All-American honors for the second time in her career.
The guard achieved many other incredible marks in her fourth season with the Lady Eagles. On Feb 11, the junior scored a career-high 44 points becoming the second player in school history and sixth in SAC history to score 2,000 points in a career. In that same game, she buried seven triples, passing Tatum Burstrom for the career record in three-pointers made.
Wykle has scored in double-figures 99 times in her career. She has played in 111 games and started all of them. Half of those games have seen the guard score 20 points or more. The fifth-year guard enters the season just 203 points away from becoming Carson-Newman women's basketball's all-time leading scorer.
Taylor earns preseason First-Team All-SAC for the third consecutive preseason. She had her 2022-23 season cut short because of a knee injury suffered in the fourth game of the season against North Georgia. When healthy, the post player is one of the top inside scoring options in the country. As a junior, she averaged 15.4 points and nearly eight rebounds per game. The 2021-22 season saw the 6'2 forward record eight double doubles and lead her team in rebounding on 19 different occasions.
In her C-N career, she is averaging 14.4 points per game and shoots 62% percent from the field. The Maryville, Tenn. native enters the year needing 20 points to reach the 1,000-point total overall for her career and needs 225 to become the 30th member of Carson-Newman's 1,000th-point club.
Penland earned the third honor of her career and her first preseason All-SAC honor. She started all 29 games this past season, posting 12.5 points per game and 6.1 rebounds per game. Both of those averages were second most on the team. 19 of those 29 games saw the sophomore score in double digits.
The junior guard ranked 35th nationally making 86.7 percent of her foul shots. She scored a career-high 24 points against #23 Wingate on Feb 18. She begins the season 317 points away from also achieving 1,000 points in her career. She has scored 320 and 363 points in her first two seasons with C-N.
Only two other teams had players represented on the first team. Catawba's Janiya Downs and Lyrik Thorne and Lenoir-Rhyne's Blaikley Crooks and Emily Harman joined Taylor and Wykle on the first team.
The season begins on Nov. 11 versus Lander when C-N hosts the SAC/Peach Belt Crossover at 5:30 p.m. with airtime starting at 5:15 p.m. with "The Appalachian Electric Cooperative Countdown to Tip-Off". All the games this season can heard on the Eagle Sports Network with video coverage available on FloSports.
