TREBILCOCK FIGHTS OFF DEFENDERS, SCRUTINY.

Byline: Ramona Shelburne Staff Writer

Ashlee Trebilcock didn't intend to cause a stir when she walked into Maples Pavilion to observe the Stanford women's basketball team practice during an unofficial visit in October. The Hart High of Newhall sophomore and her mother, Kimberlee, planned to observe quietly from high in the stands.

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer couldn't pass on the opportunity, though. The moment the Trebilcocks walked in, the Hall of Fame coach halted practice, waved to the young prospect she had been following since seventh grade and instructed her players to introduce themselves.

Such is Trebilcock's presence.

The 5-foot-9 sophomore was a basketball prodigy at 13, written up as a rising star in ``Sports Illustrated for Women'' before she even had chosen a high school.

Now 16, she's the best player at Hart, the top-ranked girls' basketball team in the area. And although she leads the team in almost every statistical category, the top college coaches in the country have begun to compare her to the college stars of today for lack of a worthy foil her age.

The success hasn't come without problems, though: Scrutiny has nipped ferociously at her heels.

Some have said she couldn't be that good, that it is all hype, or that even if she was as talented as advertised, she must have been pushed too hard as a child.

Then there's the gossip, which ranges from catty - ``she's not as good as so-and-so'' - and speculation about whether she'll transfer next year after Hart graduates seven seniors, to mean-spirited attacks on her and her mother.

Trebilcock shrugs off the criticism as gracefully as she shakes outclassed defenders on the court.

``There's people who make up things about me all the time,'' Trebilcock said. ``I hear stuff all the time about how I'm transferring to other schools. I'm staying at Hart, no question. If I was going to go to another school, I would've moved before high school. I love it at Hart.

``... But what people say doesn't really get under my skin. A lot of people in this world have to deal with this kind of thing.''

It helps Trebilcock has been in the spotlight from a young age. Before she was a basketball standout, she starred in commercials and made-for-television movies.

By the fourth grade, Trebilcock had tired of Hollywood and begged her mother to get her into basketball, contrary to another rumor that her mother, a former college player at Brigham Young, forced her to play.

Trebilcock's development was so rapid that by sixth grade she was playing for the Orange County Sharks, a feeder program to her club team, Swish. She was so talented that Kim Trebilcock had to keep a copy of her daughter's birth certificate in the glove compartment of the family car because her age so often was challenged by opposing teams.

``The first time she played in front of college coaches, they'd come up to me afterward and ask if there was some kind of typo in the program where it said `Class of 2005,' and I'd tell them that they were going to have to wait three or four years,'' said Russ Davis, the coach of Swish.

It is such effusive praise that has placed Trebilcock on a pedestal, exposing her as an easy target for the personal attacks and gossip.

Consider the following anonymous post on a message board on the Internet site www.socalhoops.com:

``Ashlee is a good player, a very good player, but Amanda Patton (her teammate at Hart) is equally as good. No wonder Brandi (Kimble) left Hart, with all the push given to Ashlee she was basically left out of the loop. If people would just let Ashlee stand on her own without constantly trying to hype her up (can anyone say MOM), Ashlee would probably receive MORE props from the basketball community.''

Scroll through the archives of this Web site's message board and one will find a dozen more posts just like it, nasty references to the elder Trebilcock's divorce, what type of car they drive, whom Ashlee had dinner with, even ridiculous speculation that she was born on an Indian reservation and really was two years older.

``I don't know why people care about that kind of stuff,'' Kim Trebilcock said. ``But I think Ashlee is smart enough to take it as a backhanded compliment.''

The one place Ashlee Trebilcock doesn't have to listen to the gossip is at Swish practices and games, where she said, ``All the girls are just like me at their high schools.''

Indeed, if she wants company in the circus-like recruiting process, she won't have to look beyond her club teammates. Davis said every player he's coached in his five years with Swish has earned a Division I scholarship.

This year's group includes such top prospects as Lindsay Pluimer of San Clemente, the Southern Section Division I-A Player of the Year last season; Amanda Livingston, a star at Troy High in Fullerton who signed with UCLA; and Eshaya Murphy, the Daily News Player of the Year last season at Montclair Prep of Panorama City who has signed with USC.

Trebilcock doesn't know where she'll play college ball; she doesn't even have a top-10 list. Although she's interested in Stanford, the unofficial recruiting trip was just the first of many.

As for Hall of Fame college coaches stopping their practices to talk with her, well, there aren't many players who could relate to that problem.

``When she gets to college, she's not going to be like anybody else, she's going to be Ashlee Trebilcock,'' Murphy said. ``There's no one else to compare her to.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) ``I don't know why people care about that kind of stuff. But I think Ashlee is smart enough to take it as a backhanded compliment.'' - Kimberlee Trebilcock, Ashlee Trebilcock's mother, on the recent gossip her daughter has attracted

(2) Hart's Ashlee Trebilcock has fended off harsh critics with more of the stellar play she's exhibited since she was 13.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer