The Harvard aquawomen went into yesterday's Greater Boston Swimming Championships as defending champions, but emerged from the Boston College swimming complex three hours later as 60-point losers to Boston University.

But they didn't care. Yesterday's Greater Boston Championships was treated as nothing more important than an afternoon workout. And now the uppermost item in the aquawomen's minds is the grudge match against Yale at home on February 14, which they hope will avenge the heartbreakingly close dual-meet loss last year--a loss that was decided in a final relay and featured injured Harvard swimmers being helped onto the blocks. In fact, the spirit of revenge is so strong that the last chant departing swimmers heard bouncing off the walls of the chlorinated auditorium yesterday was the Crimson's "Harvard, Harvard--rah, rah rah! Beat Yale!"

That is not to say that the afternoon was devoid of good Crimson efforts and performances. The top Harvard story of the day was sophomore Kathleen McCloskey, who emerged as Harvard's leading point scorer with two individual first places, as well as a second place in the 100-yard freestyle.

McCloskey has remained virtually untouched in all the fly events this fall, and yesterday was no exception. Keeping her head low and not breathing at the end of her races, McCloskey held off strong challenges from Boston College's Kris Engellener to grab both the 50- and 100-yard butterfly events with times of 27.58 and 59.98.

Another freshman phenomenon, Debbie Zimic, displayed her stroke versatility with her complete dominance in the 200-yard individual medley. In a sprint event where places often come down to hundredths of seconds, Zimic's victorious time of 2:14.5--a full three seconds ahead of the next finishers--was indeed noteworthy.

Freshman freestyle machine Jeanne Floyd also pulled through for the Crimson, swimming a gutsy neck-and-neck 200-yard freestyle against BU's Barb Sumner. Although Floyd's powerful stroking and two-beat kick brought her within inches of Sumner, Floyd had to settle for second with a 1:57.6 time--just six-tenths of a second behind Sumner's winning time.

Susan Kim, another yardling, was the only other Harvard swimmer to take first-place laurels. As the Crimson aquawomen serenaded her with "Rock Lobster," Kim stroked quickly and efficiently to a victorious 1:12.7 in the 100-yard breast-stroke. Later she came back to take a close second place in the 50-yard breaststroke with a time of 33.9.

The Harvard diving corps also displayed its usual excellence and reliability. Battling cold air, drafts, and acute cases of shivers, the strong duo of Adriana Holy and Pam Stone went 2-3 and 3-2 in the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions--finishing behind BU's incomparable Veronica Ribot in both contests.

Other personally satisfying swims of the afternoon were Debbie "Sub-Deb" Markson's 26.3 in the 50 free; Debbie Jacobs' 2:16.3 in the 200 free; Geralyn White's 35.4 in the 50 breast; and Kate Berghuis' 1:22.3 in the 100 breast.