A scant five swimmers will carry Radcliffe's slim hopes for glory against the best swimmers in the East coast when the second leg in the National Championships trilogy gets under way today in Philadelphia.

Three freshmen, Laurie Downey, Carol Moore, Diana Borden, sophomore Susan Sawyer, and senior tri-captain Nancy Sato will try to better the full team's eleventhplace finish in the New Englands against the stronger competition at the Eastern championships. from which competitors will be chose for the nationals.

"I'm afraid that going against teams of this caliber, we can't hope for a large team score. Not this year anyway." Downcy said yesterday.

"We've been working out very hard since the New Englands but right now the competition is too strong to matter," she added.

Downey snatched a national qualifying time at New Englands with a fourth-place finish in the 100 yard backstroke However, she will not be competing in this event today or at the nationals in Arizona, later this month, because of conflicts with the meetings of her freshman seminar.

Preliminaries for the 100 are held on Fridays. which is when the class meets.

Instead Downey will focus on the 200-yard individual; medley and the 50-yard backstroke.

New England diving champion Nancy Sato still mildly affected by a shoulder injury,. will not swim today, but will concentrate on the 1 and 3 meter dives.

Sato's place on the 200-yard freestyle relay will be filled by Sawyer. Coach Alice McCabe said earlier this week that Sawyars improvement in this, her first season is tremendous" and labeled her an important unknown factor in Radcliffe's chances in the meet

Moore and Borden will wind up the relay and compete in the breaststroke events Moore will handle the duties in the 100-yard breath stroke while Borden will take of the 50-yard breastroke.