The women's hoopsters failed last night to choke the Syracuse Orangemen's inside game, losing 68-54 at Syracuse to a team that towered over them by three or four inches.

Although the loss brings the Crimson's record to 5-15, there is a bright side: for the first time since December, the team stuck to its game plan.

That plan was directed mostly at Syracuse's two tallest players, 5'11" forward Kim Dick and 6-ft. center Maryann Mogish. But Harvard's 6-ft. center Elaine Holpuch and sophomore Nancy Boutilier were both sidelined with ankle injuries, leaving the squad bereft of Holpuch's rebounding talents and Boutilier's consistent dumps from the outside.

"Their strength was in their inside game and their running game," coach Carole Kleinfelder said. "We tried to press them to keep them from running the ball and we tried to play a 2-3 defense to keep them on the outside."

Keeping them on the outside meant constantly challenging Syracuse guard Lynn McNulty, who still managed to score ten points. But even as they let three Orange scorers--Dick, Mogish, and McNulty--get into double figures, the Crimson held on almost till the end.

"At the beginning, we pretty much controlled the tempo," Boutilier said. Much credit for that went to sophomore guard Pat Horne, who, with five assists and six steals to show for her fine defensive work, was also the Crimson's high scorer with eleven baskets.

Much-needed early energy flowed from Kate Martin, another guard. With eight points in the first half--10 for the game total--she and Horne led the Harvard drive to a halftime score of 35-30, Syracuse.

But the Crimson just didn't have enough Hornes and Martins on its side last night. In fact, from the number of injuries, one would have thought the Crimson could hardly muster up five starters.

"If we had a little more depth we could have stayed closer," Kleinfelder said. In an effort to provide some of that depth, Kleinfelder brought freshmen Fatty Davis and Sara Albee up from JV. Davis contributed six points and four rebounds and Albee scored 3 points.

THE NOTEBOOK: While Syracuse heads for NYC and St. John's University to see whether they're number two in the East or number one, the Crimson will finish their upstate New York road trip with tomorrow night's contest against Cornell. Both the Crimson and the Big Red have 1-5 Ivy records, but if Elaine Holpuch recovers, Harvard stands a good chance of their second Ivy win.