The women's swim team opens its season this evening strengthened by a large group of freshmen. The team is somewhat green, with some early injuries and just a pre-season meet under its belt, but Clarke, tonight's opponent, is a new team and should break the swimmers in nicely.

Pass the Test

"It will be a good test to see what we can do in the longer distances so early in the season," Coach Stephanie Walsh said yesterday. Things will have to gel quickly for the women as they take on Boston University on Saturday and Maine next week.

The freestyle looks solid again with standouts Liz Kelly and Jane Fayer back. Sophomores Katie Kelley and Gina Stuart will continue to add depth to freestyle and lead the way in the backstroke.

Maura Costin, whose Harvard swimming career has been an endless sequence of injuries, feels healthy again but she said last night that she has changed to new events to avoid putting strain on her tender back. Costin will stick to "mainly sprints"--the 100-yd. butterfly and the 200-yd. freestyle for instance.

The freshman crop is led by breastroker Adele Joel, who has already set one pool record. Breastrokers have been a rare breed for the women's swim team and her arrival will give the swimmers much needed depth. "We finally have a breastroker, after three years of trying," Walsh exulted yesterday.

Other freshmen making their debut tonight include freestyler Elizabeth Adams, backstroker Emily Feldman, butterfly specialist Julie McAree and divers Pam Stone and Charlotte Worsley.

Flaunt It

"We have some freshmen stars who will be showing us their stuff," captain Claire Goodman said last night. She added that she feels the team is "much stronger" than last season. "It's a closer knit group, partly because of the freshmen," she said.

Despite a rough schedule and competition in the Ivies from Princton, Yale and Brown, the women hope to live up to their new tee shirt slogan: "100 years of Radcliffe women making waves at Harvard."