The Harvard swim team has run out of soft touches. This afternoon at Princeton the Crimson swims smack into one of the East's and the nation's best outfits.

Recent NCAA statistics showed Princeton with the best national times in the medley and freestyle relays. And the Tigers are undefeated--9-0.

"Oh, there's no question about their being a sensational team." Harvard coach Bill Brooks was saying this week. "They're strong in every event all the way through."

Brook's voice seemed to quiver just a bit as he told of the Tigers' 71-39 clobbering of midwest toughie Ohio State. Then he started to rattle off an impressive list of Princeton strengths:

- It seems that sophomore butterflyer Ross Wales swam his 100-yard leg of a recent medley relay in world-record time of 49.1 seconds.

- Darryl Myerberg clocked a 47.1 100-yard free in that same meet -- 0.9 seconds under Bill Shrout's Harvard record.

-- Holt Maness ranks eighth nationally in the dive; he was Junior National champion last year.

- The Princeton freestyle relay team has a 3:13.0 time to its credit. This mark also betters a Harvard varsity record.

It will be a long afternoon for both the varsity and the freshman. And the freshman are still recovering from this week's slaughter at Exeter.