SIGONELLA, Italy – Anyone who noticed how eagerly the Sigonella Lady Jaguars’ Tenia Strobridge looked forward to this weekend’s opening of the DODDS-Europe high school basketball season now knows why.

All Strobridge, a freshman transfer from South Carolina, did in her varsity debut was post consecutive double-doubles as Sigonella battered visiting Marymount International School of Rome 43-15 and 43-9 on Friday and Saturday.

Strobridge, a 5-foot-11-inch center, was the key factor in both victories. In addition to scoring 20 points in each contest, she pulled down 19 rebounds in the opener and 12 in Saturday’s romp.

According to Sigonella athletic director Amy Driscoll, Strobridge, whose mother Tania is former high school coach in the States who’s assisting here, played far above her years in her first high school game.

“She definitely has experience,” Driscoll said. “In fact, she has more experience than some of the players we’ve had for two or three years.”

Strobridge’s next experience comes this weekend, when she samples, for the first time, the long road trips which define high school sports in Italy. The Lady Jaguars are slated to close out the 2010 portion of their schedule Friday and Saturday all the way up the Italian peninsula at Milan.

In other girls’ games of note on opening weekend:

Wiesbaden 50, SHAPE 28: Saturday at Wiesbaden, the defending European Division I champs completed a two-game sweep of the visiting Lady Spartans behind a combined 26 points and 22 rebounds from All-Europe sisters LeAmber and LeAndra Thomas.

Le Amber took team-scoring honors with 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds. LeAndra registered 12 points and a game-high 13 rebounds.

SHAPE fell to 0-2 overall despite 20 points, 18 of them on six three-pointers, by Gina Rhett. Rhett sank four 3-pointers and totaled 13 points in Friday night’s 49-23 Wiesbaden victory.

Wiesbaden’s Taylor Dore took game-scoring honors on Friday with 22 points and bagged 10 rebounds in that romp; LeAmber Thomas scored 15 points and pulled down 13 rebounds.

Kaiserslautern 48, Patch 40: Saturday at Kaiserslautern, All-European Cariema Wood scored 15 points and Medina Gregory 13 as the Lady Raiders made opening weekend a 2-0 affair. Kaiserslautern’s girls edged Heidelberg 33-32 on Friday on Wood’s game-winning free throw with six seconds left in the game.

Patch’s Janelle Loney led all Saturday scorers with 22 points.

Brussels 24, Alconbury 10: Saturday at Steerebeek, Belgium, the defending European D-III champion Lady Brigands upped their record to 2-0 overall and in Region I behind 10 points and six rebounds from Valerie Chausee and eight points and eight rebounds from Dominique Poitier.

Friday, Brussels inaugurated its new gym with a 32-2 thumping of fellow D-III school Alconbury as Poitier scored 10 points.

Alconbury (0-2, 0-2) suffered from the absence of starters Savanna Fourman and Alex Sherenco on Friday, according to Brussels coach Dexter Bohn, because the pair hadn’t completed the required number of practices prior to the game.

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