A small Radcliffe swim team takes on a strange 50-member squad from the University of New Hampshire today in the first of ten meets scheduled for the 1973-74 season.

Although 19 women, four of them freshmen, comprise this year's Radcliffe team, only ten will make the trip to UNH. Nine of these girls have swum for Radcliffe in the past and bring needed experience to the otherwise inexperienced crew.

"It's difficult to tell if we'll have much depth. It depends on how much the girls practice and how fast they get into shape," swim coach Alice G. McCabe said Wednesday.

Toughest Competition

McCabe predicts that Brown and Wellesley will be the team's biggest competitors this year. "Wellesley has inherited a couple of excellent swimmers this year," McCabe said, "and several girls stayed at Brown all summer to practice in the new pool."

McCabe cited weakness in breaststroke and the incoming freshmen's lack of experience as major drawbacks for the Radcliffe team. "Only one out of our four freshmen has had previous swimming experience. We are still developing swimming talent at the college level," McCabe said.

"With the Harvard-Radcliffe athletics merger, we've been lost in practices," captain RoAnne Costin said Wednesday. "It takes time to coordinate things."

The upcoming selection of a new Radcliffe swim coach and the recent appointment of McCabe as director of Intercollegiate Athletics will solve some problems posed by the merger.

IAB Pool

Greater accessibility this year to the IAB pool may also ease practices for upcoming swimming events. Many of the women are now working concurrently with the Harvard swim team at the IAB pool.

"I feel it's important to get into a racing situation. The Radcliffe pool is cramped and in this regard is not so good as the IAB," Costin said.

Both Coston and McCabe predict that Radcliffe's strength will lie in the relays this year. The team qualified four relays--two medley and two freestyle--at the national meet in Moscow, Idaho, last March and if all goes well, it hopes to accomplish that feat again this year.

McCabe also expects the freestylers to put in good performances in today's meet. "Freestyle should be a strong event this year. Sophomore Kris Krendl started looking real good last year in the shorter events. Sophomores Maureen Murphy and Jeannie Guyton should also help us in the freestyle," she says.

Returning Standouts

Five returning standouts--Connie Cervilla, Costin, Laura Lennihan, Julie Bradley, and Nancy Sato are also expected to bring in points at this season's first meet. The team will rely in Costin for the distance swims, on Bradley for the sprints, and on Cervilla for the butterfly and freestyle events.

Sato, the 1973 one-meter inter-collegiate diving champ, plans to swim and dive at the UNH competition today.

A regular diving practice schedule has not been established for the four Radcliffe divers, but Sato has been training daily with Harvard diving coach John Walker.

Junior Laverne Sergeant, diving for her second year, will also dive at the UNH meet today.

"We're a lot better than last year, just because we have one more year's experience," Sato said. "But I have no way of knowing what our performance will be on the boards. I haven't seen anyone dive yet this year," she said.