Sports are not supposed to be this consistent. A hot team one year is supposed to falter the next. A new team is supposed to rise from the ranks and seize the moment and the glory.

Or so modern thinking would have it. But parity has yet to reach the world of women's lacrosse.

For the fourth time in five years, a single game--Harvard vs. Dartmouth--will decide the Ivy League title. That game will be played at 3 p.m. today at Soldiers Field.

Both Harvard and Dartmouth will enter the game with 5-0 Ivy records. Both teams will enter the game riding winning streaks, and both already have earned bids to this weekend's four-team ECAC Tournament.

The Big Green--which last year captured its first league title by besting Harvard, 10-9, in Hanover, N.H.--has experience and Julie Clymo on its side. The Crimson, denied a sixth straight Ivy crown last year, has youth and Kelly McBride.

Clymo has scored 43 goals on her way to leading Dartmouth to a 10-3 overall record. She netted seven of her team's eight goals in the Big Green's triumph at Cornell last Friday and five goals in a victory at Penn Sunday.

"Dartmouth has a strong offense," Harvard Coach Carole Kleinfelder said. "They've got a powerful player in Clymo. Their weakness is their defense."

Big Green goalie Moreen Towers, owner of a .565 overall save percentage and a spectacular .625 percentage in the Ivies, will get a chance to prove she really is "The Tower of Power" when she faces McBride and company today.

Here Comes McBride

McBride, the Harvard captain, leads her team in scoring with 33 goals and has guided the young Crimson (nine freshman are on the roster) to a 9-3-1 overall mark, which includes five straight victories.

Like Clymo, who is followed on the Big Green scoring list by Anne Moellering (25 goals, 7 assists for 32 points) and Beth Hunt (23-4--27), McBride has a strong supporting cast. Kate Felsen (30-17--47) leads the team in scoring, and freshman Char Joslin has pumped in 29 goals.

"I don't think their attack is any better than ours," says Hunt, who answered her phone yesterday "Ivy League champions."

"We'll go head to head," Hunt added. "We were out running around in the snow today and everyone was pumped up. We want a second Ivy championship."

Most of the players on this year's Big Green played on last season's title team. Almost half the players on this year's Crimson were still in high school, oblivious of the Harvard Dartmouth rivalry that last year took place in front of 1000 people.

"Last year we didn't play well," Kleinfelder said. "We didn't play the way we needed to play. They have some experience and we're pretty young, but I don't think this will be a factor. If we play up to our potential, we'll win."

Kelly Dermody, who got the win in the Crimson's 12-4 victory over Yale last Saturday, will start in goal today. If she gets in trouble, Kleinfelder will turn to reserve netminder Loreen Costa.

"Both goalies have been playing well this year," Kleinfelder said. "If Kelly does well, we'll stay with her. But I have no fears or anxieties about going with Loreen."