BATON ROUGE — Members of LSU’s 2010-11 fall signing class have earned post-season honors in their various states and districts and also gotten the chance to participate in post-season high school all-star games.
Signees Matt Derenbecker of Metairie Park Country Day in Metairie, La., and Andre Stringer of Forest Hill High School in Jackson, Miss., each won state Gatorade Player of the Year honors for the second consecutive season. Derenbecker averaged 25.5 points per game and 9.9 rebounds while leading Country Day to the Class 1A state finals.
Derenbecker was also recently named the New Orleans Times Picayune’s All-metro Player of the Year in high school basketball.
Stringer is the first player from the state of Mississippi to win the Gatorade honor in back-to-back seasons. He averaged 26 points and nine assists a game.
All four signees have participated in all-star games with three participating in the Mississippi-Alabama game in Pelham, Ala., in which Mississippi scored a 112-88 victory.
Jalen Courtney, from Provine High School in Jackson, Miss., scored four points in 13 minutes for the Mississippi squad, while teammate Stringer hit four treys in posting 14 points, eight assists and three steals in 29 minutes. Both players started the game for the state of Mississippi.
Ralston Turner, from Muscle Shoals High School in Muscle Shoals, Ala., started for Alabama and scored six points with five assists and a block in 20 minutes of play. Turner averaged 21 points and 5.5 rebounds a game and was named first team All-Area on the Class 4A-6A squad selected by the Florence Times Daily.
In Louisiana, Derenbecker played in the Louisiana Coaches Association game in Natchitoches after taking his team to a second-straight Top 28 appearance and being named the MOP of the Class 1A All-State team.