It's more a credit to the program's past than its present that one national lacrosse magazine has ranked the Harvard women's lacrosse squad fourth in the nation in its preseason poll.

And when the Crimson makes its local debut this afternoon, the squad might be haunted more by that past than by its opponent.

Gone are the to five players in Harvard women's lax history and with them three straight Ivy League titles, three straight trips to the NCAA championships and the knowledge that no one was more responsible for turning the Harvard women's lacrosse squad into one of the nation's premiere teams.

In their places are a swarm of talented--yet young, inexperienced and untested--lax women, eager to carry on the newly found tradition.

"But they're still living in that legend," says Harvard Coach Carole Kleinfelder, eager to dispel the notion that three straight stellar years will automatically become four.

The legend haunted Harvard when at opened its 1984 campaign last weekend at the University of Maryland, sans the quintet that made losing a rare occurence.

"We played though we didn't want to lose rather than as if we wanted to win," one Crimson player said after the season-opening 9-2 loss.

"We have to start playing like a brand new team," Kleinfelder says, glancing at the plaques and awards that decorate her office. "There's no question we're not as strong as we've been." Raw Talent

"But that doesn't mean we can't be," the sixth-year coach adds. "We've got the raw talent."

It's the experience that's missing.

Even the squad's captain is just a two-year veteran to the game. But it's precisely to Captain Maggie Hart that the Crimson will look not only for direction but also for offense. As the squad's and the Ivy League's top returning scorer, Hart has become the star on an as yet starless team.

"It's going to be difficult for Maggie." Kleinfelder concedes. "She's still new to the game; she's still learning."

So it won't be easy for Hart to turn around and tell her teammates what they're doing wrong as it was for last year's All-American Captain Maureen Finn.

But junior Claire Farley has inherited the most unenviable task on the Crimson squad, which finished 12-4-1 and a NCAA quarterfinalist a year ago. A j. v standout last year, Farley will make first home her new home, and there she'll have to replace the graduated Ivy League Player of the Year Finn.

Compounding the problems on offense, a slew of freshmen will have to fight it out for second home, where they'll find the ghost of All-American Francesca DenHartog, who together with Finn holds every Crimson record.

"How good a team we're going to be this season will depend on how quickly we can develop offensively," says Kleinfelder, one of the country's top lacrosse coaches. "That's where we'll have to do our coaching."

"It's going to take a little while for the offense to gel," agrees junior Eillen O'Neill. "The goals are going to have to be generated from the defense for a while."

It's that defense that provides the optimism for a team whose returning offense accounted for only 60 of last year's 237 goals.

O'Neill's back and there she'll be joined Jennifer Greely and Rhodes Scholar senior Sarah Sewall, both of whom took last season off. Kleinfelder's counting on the group's experience to make up for the graduation of Kate Martin and Jeanne Piersiak.

"Sarah and Jennifer give us new depth that was unexpected," Kleinfelder says.

In goal, second team All-Ivy goalie Krickett Johnson returns with added confidence, while senior Beth Mullen puts on the backup pads after a stint last year at defense.

"The potential's there," Kleinfelder says of the squad that lacks the size of past years but has the speed it's never had.

"We'll have to be a scrappy team," she adds, cognizant that the days of nine and 10 goal wins are gone. "If they let themselves go, though, maybe we'll surprise a few people."

Cornell, Princeton and Yale won't be so surprised if the Crimson runs to its fourth straight Ivy title. But Penn. Brown and the Cinderella story of the Ivies when it finished second in the league last year--Dartmouth--might have another thing to say.

Those three figure to give the Crimson a run for the title, which automatically sends the champion to the 12-team NCAA tournament, culminating with the Final Four at Boston University in May.

Snow bound

But Kleinfelder would first like to make a run for the field. Soldiers Field. ASAP.

The recent snow has kept the Crimson show locked in Briggs Cage, preventing the squad from full field practice.

"We're the kind of team that's going to be stronger at the end," Kleinfelder says, "and we can't even seem to get started."

So with the fields still covered with snow, the squad's home opener has become the local opener, and this afternoon has become tonight.

The game with the University of Rhode Island originally scheduled for 3 p.m. on Soldiers Field has been slated for a 6 p.m. start at B.U.