Costa Mesa’s DiCamilli Turns it Up in Playoffs : Girls’ basketball: Freshman has been a terror in leading her team into the 3-A final.

If her soft touch on 15-foot jump shots doesn’t get her noticed, her hair style and age certainly will.

Olivia DiCamilli’s prowess on the court has Orange County girls’ basketball coaches doing double takes. And that is before they discover that she is a 14-year-old freshman at Costa Mesa High School.

DiCamilli, a 5-9, 160-pound guard/forward, led her team in scoring with 14 points and 11 rebounds a game during the regular season.

But in the playoffs, she has become another player entirely.

DiCamilli still wears her blonde hair in a multitude of thin plaits woven into one large French braid, but her offensive statistics don’t bear any resemblance to those she compiled in the regular season.

In four playoff games, DiCamilli has averaged 21.5 points and 19 rebounds.

It started in the last Pacific Coast League game against Trabuco Hills, a must-win for Costa Mesa, which had its sights on a third-place finish and a playoff berth. DiCamilli scored nine of Costa Mesa’s 10 points in overtime of a 63-57 victory. She finished the game with 32 points, 20 rebounds and five steals.

In a first-round 55-30 playoff victory over Workman, she had 18 points and 19 rebounds. In a second-round 47-45 upset of third-seeded Bellflower, she had 24 rebounds and 16 points. In the quarterfinals against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, she had 24 points and 23 rebounds in a 56-44 victory.

And Saturday, DiCamilli helped Costa Mesa reach the Southern Section 3-A final.

The Mustangs upset second-seeded South Hills, 61-55. DiCamilli scored 28 points on 10-of-20 shooting and had 10 rebounds.

The Mustangs will play top-seeded Rancho Alamitos on Wednesday in the final at Cal Poly Pomona. Costa Mesa has never before advanced past the second round.

El Toro Coach Greg Yeck credits DiCamilli for Costa Mesa’s success. “I saw her in the summer league in seventh and eighth grade before she really got going,” Yeck said. “You could see back then the kid was going to be good.

“She came on a little faster than anybody anticipated this year. I’ve heard her compared to (guard) Joni Easterly (who led Katella to the 4-A championship last year). She is like that in that she can carry a team. It is kind of scary that they are going to have her around for the next three years.”

DiCamilli doesn’t have to carry the team, however. Junior Rachel Ward and senior guard Thuy Nguyen also average double figures in scoring. Senior Michele Bryant, the Mustangs’ top defender, adds leadership and Robin Nichols is a solid fifth starter who knows how to find an open shooter.

But it took this young group a while to learn the game at the varsity level, adjust to each other and learn their roles, Coach Jim Weeks said.

“We knew coming in we were going to be very young and inexperienced, and it was just a matter of learning the game and maturing in time for the playoffs,” Weeks said.

Said DiCamilli: “We had so many different players and so many different attitudes. We didn’t have anything in common and none of us really got along until the end of the season.”

DiCamilli’s skills have jumped a level since the playoffs and the Mustangs’ fortunes have risen with her. Still, she has struggled to learn man-to-man defense and doesn’t have great natural foot speed, Weeks said.

But DiCamilli, who hopes to be an Olympian in the 1996 Games, is a force on the offensive boards.

“She is just so physically strong that she almost never has the ball taken away from her,” Weeks said. “Against Trabuco Hills she scored with a girl hanging all over her arm. She just powered it up and scored.”

Eric Bangs, coach of Pacific Coast League champion Woodbridge, says DiCamilli is ‘by far the best freshman in the county.’ But comparisons to Easterly, now at USC, might be premature, he says.

“She’s only 14 and she is bigger and stronger than anybody we had on our varsity,” Bangs said. “(And) I haven’t seen too many freshmen play the level of man-to-man defense she plays. But I don’t see the passion and all that intensity of a Joni Easterly yet. But if she enjoys the game she is going to be a great player.’

Said Weeks, “She reacts to things instead of anticipating things right now.

“As she gets more into it and gets more experience, she’ll start anticipating things that are going to happen and she’ll look a lot quicker.”