The first rule of athletic schedules is you aren't the best until you play the best. No one gets a bid to a post-season tournament by beating East Omaha State--just ask last year's 10-4-1 men's soccer team who stayed home at tourney time.

The 1981 booters--with 16 letterman returning from 1980--get their second chance this year at top-flight competition when Hartwick College, the defending Eastern Regional champ, visits the Business School Field at 3:30 today.

No MIT

Before a recent loss to Long Island U., Hartwick was ranked ninth in the nation and comes to Cambridge at 5-2-1, with big wins over the University of North Carolina and Adelphi and a 1-1 draw with a Princeton team predicted to take the Ivies. Not "the" best, but no MIT, either.

Led by senior Tom Murray and sophomore Mike LoPuyada at forward sports and offense-minded sweeper David Long, Hartwick has tallied 24 times in eight games and has yet to be shut out.

Last year, Hartwick's 16-7-1 squad took the East, but ended up fourth in the NCAA Final Four. Missing from that team are goalkeeper Aly Anderson and forward Rudy Peyna, both graduated and playing pro.

Coming off a two-week layoff, Harvard enters the match riding a two home game winning streak. Playing on the familiar B-School turf, the Crimson has been dynamite, exploding for eight goals in the two matches while limiting their opponents to but three.

Senior All-Ivy wing Mauro Keller-Sarmiento leads the attack with three goals and one assist, and fellow forward Lance Ayrault has added two tallies.

With senior captain Jeff Duggan at stopper and Peter Sergienko at sweeper, the defense has been steady--but has shown some weakness on set plays from free kicks.

But Coach George Ford is quick to remind observers that the two marks in the win column came at the expense of MIT and Brandeis--both mediocre at best.

That has been Ford's major complaint. He praises his charges, but qualifies his plaudits by warning that they have missed real competition, both in practice and in their home matches.

In fact, stiff competition has provided the booters' only real set-back, in an important Ivy outing in New York City against a strong Columbia squad. At times in that match, the Lions simply played above their heads.

Harvard and Hartwick haven't met on the soccer field since 1970. Eleven years ago, the Crimson were coming off a perfect 10-0 season with an Ivy League title--their most recent--and a spot in the Eastern quarterfinals. On a cold, muddy pitch in Oneonta, N.Y., Hartwick stunned the booters with a 4-3 overtime win that sent the Harvard program into a tailspin that has taken a decade to end. Today's match is a chance to gain altitude.