The varsity soccer team ran into another away-game ambush yesterday, bowing 5-1 to an Amherst squad that brought an 0-4 record into the contest.

The Crimson booters outplayed their opponents for more than a half but were again victims of their recurrent inability to capitalize on the scoring opportunities they created.

When the Lord Jeffs took a 3-1 lead on a fluke goal 15 minutes into the second frame, the visitors ran out of gas, and Harvard mentor George Ford sent in his substitutes to preside over the final two Amherst tallies.

Until then, the game had been up for grabs. The Lord Jeffs notched the first goal on a corner kick when Chris Saunders and fullback Bob Carey collided and the ball ended up in the net. Harvard quickly retaliated when half a dozen fine passes set up Dave Eaton's beautiful shot from 12 yards out.

Through the rest of the half, both teams made a number of offensive thrusts, but the Crimson was unable to turn the pressure on the Amherst inner guard into goals up on the scoreboard.

Shortly after Eaton's score, co-captain Lyman Bullard made a beautiful play to get off a high-percentage shot, twisting his ankle in the process, but the attempt sailed wide. "If it had gone in, I think we would have broken them," Ford said yesterday.

But as the half drew to a close, the Lord Jeffs put together their only crisp scoring play of the afternoon--all their other tallies came on unlikely plays that Ford called "scrappy affairs"--to take a 2-1 lead. "They did the job they had to do at just the right time," Ford said yesterday.

At the intermission, Harvard was still anything but finished. "At the half we felt that we were still in it," Crimson goalie Fred Herold said yesterday.

For 15 minutes after the half, Ford's charges struggled for a tie, but then a defensive lapse left an Amherst booter wide open 15 yards out, and he arched a twisting shot toward the Harvard net. The strange bouncer eluded the lunging Herold, and the Lord Jeffs had dealt the telling blow.

"We were playing them even or one better as far as producing chances went, but that third goal was really demoralizing," Eaton said yesterday. "Some people kept playing, but you could tell that we were finished. After that, we were just trying to get one more goal to avoid any more humiliation."

"I'm not disappointed," Ford said afterwards. "It was a good game played well by both teams, and I don't think the score reflected the way Harvard played."