FRESH FACES

Westminster’s Eva Camarena scored 36 points in her first varsity basketball game.

The school record is 40.

San Clemente’s Lindsey Pluimer began the season as a backup. forward. That was before the 6-foot-2 forward began contributing so much the coach had no choice but to make her a starter.

Their journeys have been vastly different, but they share a common bond. Both are 14-year-old freshman who pack a wallop upon their arrival. Camarena and Pluimer are the brightest examples in the growing wave of players who walk through the doors as freshmen and into the varsity lineup--and then make a difference.

Girls are getting involved in sports long before they reach high school and they are being challenged like never before.

“The biggest change in girls’ basketball is that more girls are playing at a younger age,” said Camarena’s coach, Dick Katz, who has been in coaching for 36 years. “I see seventh- and eighth-grade players who could be on some varsity teams.”

Camarena is an exception. The youngest of 16 children, she didn’t start playing until sixth grade against several of her nine brothers. “They said, ‘If you want to play with the guys, you have to play like a guy,’ ” she says.

It shows.

“She’ll shoot a three-point basket two steps past midcourt,” said Katz, who has started several freshmen during his 17 years of coaching girls. “I’ve never had a girl who plays so much like a guy as she does. Referees call her for traveling because they can’t believe a girl can make that spinning layup move.”

Camarena is averaging 18 points for a Westminster team whose tallest player is 5 feet 9. The Lions, favored to win the Golden West League, are 11-4. Over the weekend, they lost to ninth-ranked Edison in overtime; they previously lost a tough battle to eighth-ranked Woodbridge, 61-53, during which Camarena fouled out.

Pluimer has been equally impressive to San Clemente Coach Mary Mulligan. She is the first full-time freshman starter in Mulligan’s 15 years as coach.

Pluimer took the more common path of today’s younger stars. She started young, in National Junior Basketball in third grade, and moved into the club programs.

“I knew she was very good, very skilled and was picking up on our stuff,” Mulligan said. “But until I saw her perform in varsity-level competition, I really couldn’t make a fair judgment on whether she was prepared to start.”

She was. And she is. Pluimer is averaging a team-high 12.7 points with 7.9 rebounds for San Clemente (13-2), the second-ranked team in Orange County. “I’ve been most impressed with her composure in the big games,” Mulligan said. “She doesn’t back down.”

Neither do some of the county’s other freshmen, who haven’t been nearly so splashy but have played important roles.

* Alisha Mountford has stepped up to the challenge of playing point guard for sixth-ranked Huntington Beach.

* Forward Meghan McGuire has shot 80% from the field in the last five games for fifth-ranked Troy.

* Forward Carrie Noyes, averaging 10 points, is the first designated freshman starter at Brea Olinda since Nicole Erickson in 1990-91, and teammate Lauren Petersen leads the county’s third-ranked team in offensive rebounds despite being a reserve guard.

* Guard Cara Enright, averaging 6.6 points while shooting 55% from the field, proved herself even before seventh-ranked Rosary was hit by injuries that forced her into a starting role.

Difference-making freshmen aren’t restricted to the top teams. By the midway point in its season, Ocean View won its fifth game--four more than last season--largely because of point guard Leila Abufarie.

Making an impact right away can also involve some luck. San Clemente had only one returning starter, and Westminster needed all the help it could get.

But Esperanza has plenty of guards, which limits Valerie Jones’ playing time.

“If we weren’t as good as we are at guard, [Jones] would be starting and scoring 12 points a game for us,” said Marc Hill, whose team is ranked No. 1 in the county.

Two of Esperanza’s three guards, juniors Lindsey Helvey and Tina Kalogeropoulos, started as freshmen. Jones’ situation just wasn’t as fortuitous.

Timing and circumstance mean a lot in the freshmen phenomenon. So does skill.

“It will continue because these kids are playing at such a high level of competition in club ball,” Mulligan said. “Each group of freshmen that comes into school has played so much more basketball than the freshmen who came in four years earlier.”