The Harvard rugby team blanked MIT, 17 to 0, yesterday afternoon on the House football field in its first and only game prior to the spring trip to Bermuda.

Actually, the Crimson score isn't so impressive as it looks. A "try," which is worth three points, is roughly comparable to a touchdown in football and occurs when a player down the ball behind the enemy goal line.

A conversion (kicking the oval through the goal posts from a point perpendicular to the place where the try was made) gets two more points. A try followed by a conversion is a goal. Thus, Harvard made four tries and a goal.

Al Green scored the first two tries, the first on a pass from Jack Emerson within four minutes after the start of the game. Ed White added a third to make the halftime score 9 to 0.

Mike Peabody scored eight minutes after the start of the second half and Green converted. Peter Manning-Smith scored Harvard's last try on a forward rush.

Informal Contest

The Tech team included seven members of the Harvard B squad. In the scrums, the winners were weak on hooking but their backs, particularly scrum halfback Colin McIntyre and Joe Eaton, were impressive.

Coach Ed Callanan's outfit leaves from Logan Airport at 2:15 p.m. tomorrow and arrives in Bermuda four hours later.

Two championships will be decided next week--the Bermuda Trophy, which goes either to a Bermuda team or an American college team, and the Big Three crown. Harvard meets the Bermuda Athletic Association on Tuesday and Yale on Thursday. The winner of this game plays Princeton, defending Big Three champs, a week from Saturday. A contest between the Bermuda All Stars and the Big Three All Stars a week from Sunday closes the program, and the team will fly home that night.