The shine isn't quite all there yet. The polish needs a little work. But the basic product is sound and sturdy.

The item in question is the talented Harvard lacrosse team, which fumbled ground balls, missed more than a few golden close-range scoring opportunities, but still dominated one-time national powerhouse Penn en route to ekeing out a 8-6 victory Saturday at the Business School Field.

"We felt lucky to come away with a win," Crimson coach Bob Scalise said after the sloppy contest.

Indeed, Scalise had good cause for alarm when the referees made the last of a series of questionable calls with only 1:33 left. The Quakers had just notched their sixth goal when Crimson netminder Kenny First was caught out of the net in a scramble for a loose ball. Under this year's new rules, Harvard was supposed to bring the ball up from midfield within 30 seconds after the tally. But Harvard wasn't ready to start when the refs were. So despite the fact that the zebra suits had failed to issue the mandatory warning to the Crimson before calling delay of game, the ball was awarded to the jubilant Quakers. It took a sparkling leg save by First to prevent a potentially dangerous seventh Penn goal.

As in the season's first few games, it was the check-happy Harvard defense that controlled the tempo of Saturday's windchilled contest. Scott Pink's unrelenting stick and Frank "Carlo" Prezioso's positively vicious head-removal service provided the perfect complement to First's clutch goaltending. "Penn's attack is not that good one-on-one," explained Pink, who terrorized Penn attackman Tim Dachille all afternoon.

While the Crimson's vastly superior riding and clearing ability created a host of fast breaks for its offense, the Harvard attackers were plagued--for the second weekend in a row--by an inability to put the ball in the net.

It was not until a battered Jamie Egasti took a flip from junior whiz Pete Predun, drove to his right, and bounced a shot over the shoulder of surprisingly stingy Quaker goalkeeper Chuck Leitner with 7:07 left in the game that the Crimson looked serious about winning.

Ultra-steady midfielder Gordie Nelson followed up two minutes later by taking a pretty feed from potentially awesome freshman attackman Norman "Shrub" Forbush (his third assist of the day, and his tenth of the season) and pumping home a key insurance goal.

Mike Faught, frustrated after missing several point-blank opportunities earlier in the afternoon, closed out the Crimson scoring with one of his patented intercontinental rockets.

In the early going, however, a combination of bad breaks (Harvard rapped at least three shots off the post), bad calls, and Leitner kept the frostbitten fans wondering if the Crimson offense could even outscore the Toronto Blue Jays.

Despite Harvard's total domination of the first period, it was the Quakers who scored first. With Faught in the penalty box because of severe hallucinations by the referee, Penn's aggressive sophomore middle Dave Papenfuss collected the first of his two goals on a high, hard screen shot.

Crimson senior Gerry Kelleher, who replaced freshman Mike Davis on the second midfield to add some offensive punch, knotted the score two minutes later with a long bullet from out front after a Faught feed.

Faught waited until there were only 28 seconds left in the half to answer the Quakers' next goal, taking a nifty pass from Predun and causing a momentary white blur between his stick and the upper corner of the twine. Penn's Peter Eisenbrandt, however, took only five seconds to face-dodge Egasti, beat First, and give Penn a 3-2 halftime lead.

Third-period goals by Egasti, Predun and Nelson, sandwiched in between a pair of man-up goals by Penn, left the game deadlocked going into the tense final stanza.