Harvard's three days at the Eastern Seaboard Swimming Championships in Hanover, N.H., certainly could have been more successful, but if nothing else, the Crimson did better than it did last year.

Harvard fifth with one day remaining, barely missed overtaking Villanova on Saturday and was even passed by Navy in the point standings. But Harvard's sixth-place finish is its best since a sixth in 1966. Last winter the Crimson was eighth.

Yale, though it left Olympian John Nelson in New Haven to prepare for the AAU Meet, easily repeated as Eastern champion. Princeton was second, and Dartmouth was a close third.

As on Friday, Steve' Krause, John Munk, and the freestyle relay team earned most of the Crimson's points. Breaststrokers Pete Mikhalevsky and Steve Baumgart earned the eleventh and twelfth spots at 200 yards, Mike Cahalan was tenth in the 100-free, and Dave Silver finished ninth in the three-meter diving to give Harvard additional points. Dan Kobick was eleventh in the 200-back.

The best individual performance by a Harvard swimmer Saturday was Steve Krause's third in the 1650-free, an event in which he once held the world record. His time Saturday was 17:10.74. while sophomore Greg Huff was tenth in 18:05.20.

Munk, who was fifth in the 200-fly Friday, took eighth place in the 100-yard competition in 52.9, 0.4 seconds faster than the Harvard record he set at last year's Easterns.

The 400-yard freestyle relay team, like the 800-yard team, was sixth. Cahalan, Al Ackerman, Paul Horvitz, and Toby Gerhart turned in a time of 3:15.3, finishing right behind Villanova. If the relay team had beaten Villanova, Harvard would have been fifth in the meet.