ATLANTA – After an historic sophomore season, Braelyn Wykle became the program's first underclassmen to be an All-American since 1982 Tuesday earning honorable mention laurels from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and the Division II Conference Commissioners Association.
The Greeneville, Tenn. native is the second underclassmen in school history to be named an All-American joining Lisa Stonger, a first-team NAIA All-American, in 1982. Both players were sophomores when they picked up the plaudits.
The sophomore guard is the fifth All-American over the last four years for a program that had not had a single player earn the highest honor in its Division II history prior to 2018. She joins Kayla Marosites to take home the highest distinction from two publications since Mika Wester and two-time All-American Haris Price were awarded by the WBCA, but neither took home the honor from D2CCA.
Overall, Wykle is the 13th All-American in the history of the program having put together a list of impressive honors through the first 49 games of her career. She has secured 13 total honors in her first two years highlighted by becoming the SAC Player of the Year in 2020-21.
Wykle is the fourth player in Carson-Newman history to earn the league's highest honor and the second to not share the moniker. Leah Jackson was the first and only other solo winner taking home the honor in 1992-93. Brooke Johnson in 2004-05 and Haris Price in 2017-18 were tabbed Co-Players of the Year.
The 2019-20 SAC Freshman of the Year joined an elite list becoming the eighth athlete in history to be the top rookie and top player at some point in her career. Alexy Mollenhauer of Anderson is the most recent winning the freshman honor in 2016-17 with two player of the year awards. She is the second C-N player as Johnson nabbed both awards in the same year.
As a two-time first-team All-SAC selection, she is the seventh player in Lady Eagle history to earn a slot on the top squad multiple times in her career. The Orange and Blue have pulled off the feat in four straight years with Mika Wester, Price and Kayla Marosites getting their second during the stretch.
After finishing the season No. 5 in the country in scoring average, Wykle, tallying 22.7 points per game, reset the school's single-season scoring average record that had stood since the first year of the program when Data Caldwell averaged 22.5 in 1978-79.
On the school's all-time list, the sharpshooter ranked eighth in three-pointers made with 122 for her career. She will enter the 2021-22 campaign needed 63 points to become the 28th member of the program's 1,000-point club.
Wykle's season was a work of art leading the Lady Eagles to a regular-season SAC Championship. Among other national rankings, she is 20th in free throws made (92), 22nd in field goals (147) and 43rd in three-pointers (46). Among SAC players, the point guard ranks second in free-throw percentage (86.0), second in field-goal percentage (47.4), fourth in assists (73), fourth in three-point percentage (39.7), fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.66) and eighth in steals per game (1.68).
The Volunteer State native tallied eight 20-point scoring efforts in a row from Jan. 27-Feb. 17, 2021, the most in program history since at least 2002. During the eight-game sequence, she averaged 24.9 points (199 total), shooting 48 percent from the floor (67-for-141), 46 percent from long distance (27-for-59) and 84 percent at the free-throw line (38-for-45). With a 25-point effort at Coker on Feb. 15 and a 27-point night against Mars Hill on Feb. 18, she became the first player since Price did in 2019, 53 games and 744 days prior.
A two-time SAC Player of the Week, she scored in double figures in 18 of the 19 games on the year with 15 efforts of at least 20 points and a career-high 33 at Wingate on Feb. 3 where she went 8-for-16 from the field and six of nine from deep. In the aforementioned win at Coker on Feb. 15, the All-American tallied her first-career double-double with 25 points and 10 rebounds.
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