The very same Harvard field hockey squad that earlier this month dropped as straight shutout losses yesterday dropped a pretty big hint that it's no longer the very same team.

On the strength of just one Bambi Taylor flick of a wrist, the Crimson dropped the nation's sixth-ranked University of Massachusetts squad, 1-0, and gave itself the shot in the arm it's been looking for since season's start.

With its first-ever victory over UMass, Harvard sent notice all the way to Hanover, N.H. that the Cantabs might just make a game of it when the Crimson and Dartmouth tangle there Saturday in a crucial Ivy showdown.

"They're not going to believe their eyes when they open the newspapers and see this score," Harvard Coach Edie Mabrey said of the folks in Hanover.

"We're now going to Dartmouth with our heads held high."

So just like that, the one-goal shocker seemed to erase the pain of the last month's six straight shutout losses and propel the squad into the finest of moods at the most opportune of times.

The winner of Saturday's game will become the favorite to cop the 1984 Ivy League title, a crown that would be Harvard's first.

That fact didn't escape the Crimson squad, nor did the fact that yesterday's victory was the first over the Minutemen in the Harvard program's 12-year history.

"We waited a long time for this," Harvard's senior Co-Captains Andy Mainelli and Ellen O'Neill said almost in unison.

Ironically, it was also the first time all year that the Cantabs didn't outplay the opposition. Consider for a second that:

*UMass led Harvard in shots on goal, 27-7

*UMass led Harvard in penalty corners, 18-4

*UMass led Harvard in long corners, 4-0

But then consider that it was also one of the few times all year that the Cantabs came out on top. And after the lesson of six straight shutout losses, there was little doubt which was more important.

"After all we've been through, it's about time we won a game when we didn't control the stats," said Mabrey, whose squad broke its six-game losing streak last Saturday with another 1-0 win, over Cornell.