"I'm a wing this year; I've been a wing at every sport I've ever played. I guess my speed is one of my assets, but it's way overplayed. I'm not that fast, but out on the wing I'm supposed to blow by people, so I do."

Perhaps the difference is one of esthetics: where the freshmen force, Ferrante meshes, where they charge, she flows. Perhaps Ferrante's whole venture into soccer is an attempt to match herself with her surroundings, to find her niche, the area where her skills will serve her best. ****

To see Cat Ferrante walk is to know why she meshes so well with the game of soccer. Her nickname, coined by Harvard football trainer Dick Emerson as he watched her walk across the practice field one day this fall, is "Swivel". Swivel, as in Swivel Hips. If there's such a thing as a fluid walk, this is it. Arms swinging at her side, lower body rotating independent of her upper body, she moves as though there isn't a tense muscle in her body.

"People tend to think I'm laid back, and, thinking about it, they probably get that impression from watching me play, as opposed to talking to me, from the way I move as opposed to the way I think. All I know is I'm highly competitive."

Those who can see past the way she walks don't disagree. Soccer coach Bob Scalise, who saw Ferrante's overtime goal ice the Ivy Championship game against Brown, and her goal in the 70th minute of the Eastern semifinal against UMass spark the Harvard comeback, calls her "a true competitor." Boyfriend Charlie Corry, adversary in innumerable crossword puzzles and squash games goes as far as "high strung, highly energetic."

And brother Phillip, perhaps the one that knows best, says, "She may look laid-back, but underneath she'll tear you apart."