The Harvard swim machine that has been rampaging through the Eastern Intercollegiate Swim League (EISL) will face a mediocre Army team this afternoon in a 3:30 contest at the IAB.

The Crimson swimmers that convincingly demolished EISL foes Dartmouth and Navy earlier in the season should not have too much trouble with the Cadets, still a little shell-shocked from a 69-44 shellacking by the aquamen from Princeton on Wednesday.

Army boasts a squad built around a bunch of good freshmen and a few steady upperclassmen. Ray Bosse, the star plebe, is the best all-around swimmer on the squad. His best times include a 2:02.61 in his specialty, the 200-yard individual medley this year.

Ted Kanamine, a freshman freestyler, set back to back Army freshman records in the 200-yard freestyle (1:46.99) and the 1000-yard freestyle (10:16) against Rutgers last week. Cadet Jeff Boatright, Army's other Eastern prospect, raced a 1:59.6 in his specialty, the 200-yard butterfly, against Princeton.

Plebes In Trouble

"Army has trouble with anyone in the East this year," Greg Islan, assistant director of sports information at Army, said yesterday. "We are hoping that a couple of these plebes will turn the tide for us."

Harvard will swim everyone pretty much in their specialties this afternoon in the first home contest. "We will give the fans an exciting meet," Harvard coach Ray Essick said yesterday. "We'll swim everyone and have everyone in their own events. There'll be some fast times."

Taking Chances

"Last week, we could take chances and experiment with our lineup to evaluate people outside their specialties," Essick said. "Today we want to evaluate everyone in their own events before our southern training trip."

"The guys have really been under a lot of academic pressure this week," Essick said, "and the trip should help things out." The Harvard swim team is scheduled to spend two weeks in San Juan over the Christmas holidays.

Even though Essick termed Army "competitive," a comparison of times shows the Crimson to have the stronger team. While Army's stellar freshman Kanamine set an Army record in the 1000-free at 10:16 last week, Harvard freshman Peter Tetlow set a Crimson record in the same event at 9:35 against Navy last Saturday.

"If you compare times, you can see we should be favored," Essick said. "On paper, we outpersonnel them."

And in the pool, the Crimson hopes to outswim them.