Harvard's varsity soccer team once again played a disorganized first quarter but dominated the remainder of the match, beating Princeton 4-1 on the Tigers' Poe Field.

The victory, the Crimson's eighth straight and fifth consecutive Ivy win, proved especially important as Dart-mouth upset second-place Columbia, 2-0, in Hanover.

Harvard is now three points ahead of its closest rival, Brown (3-1-1), with only two games to play. The Crimson needs a tie against the Bruins or Yale to clinch a share of the Ivy title.

Varsity coach Bruce Munro described Saturday's game as "uninspired." "We played a bad first quarter, which is becoming a Harvard tradition," Munro said. "After that we didn't play very well but we still controlled the game."

The Crimson opened the scoring late in the first period with a beautiful goal by Charlie Thomas. Forward Phil Kydes started the play with a pass to Emmanuel Ekama, who headed the ball toward the goal.

Thomas let the ball bounce once and then fired a shot past Geoff Marchant.

Far Out

Early in the second quarter, Thomas scored again to put the game out of arch. Captain Solomon Gomez passed to Thomas on a breakaway at midfield. Thomas went around one defender and pulled Marchant far out of the net before scoring.

Just before the half, junior Kydes scored his first goal of the season. Kydes dribbled in from far out and beat-Marchant with a long shot at 19:42.

Munro lectured the team at halftime about the dangers of overconfidence. "A three goal lead can be like the kiss of death," Munro said. "I'd almost rather be ahead by only one goal."

Harvard took Munro's advice and scored within two minutes of the third quarter. Thomas fed Gomez on the left wing and Gomez moved so far in toward the goal that Marchant could only stand in the net and watch the ball roll in out of his reach.

The Crimson lost its shutout at 19:30 of the final period on a hotly contested penalty kick. While the ball was in the Crimson penalty area, one of the referees called a push. The play continued after the push and a Princeton player handed the ball toward the goal. One of the Harvard fullbacks stopped the ball with his hands.

Instead of calling a direct kick against Harvard for the push or a free kick for the Crimson because of the Tiger hand ball, the referees awarded Princeton a penalty kick. Lazlo Adams then scored the disputed goal.

Although the team did not play an inspired game, Munro was particularly satisfied with the well-balanced attack of the forward line. "For the third game in a row everyone took shots on goal and three different players scored," Munro said. "No team is going to be able to mark just one of our attackers,"