MEN'S SOCCER NOTEBOOK

The men's soccer world is looking awfully fickle these days.

After jumping into the national rankings, several Ivy teams have been unable to maintain their standing. First came Yale, which reached as high as number 10 in the country (according to the Soccer America poll) before falling to Brown and Harvard. Those 'L's effectively knocked the Bulldogs, last year's Ivy champs, out of the national rankings.

After Yale took the plunge, Brown and Princeton moved into the spotlight. The Bears rose to 14th, while Princeton (which has been ranked in two years) entered at 21.

But it wasn't to be. Dartmouth crushed the Tigers, 5-1, in Princeton, N.J., while Columbia edged Brown, 1-0, in New York, N.Y.

As a result, for the first time this season, no Ivy team is ranked in Soccer America's top 20 poll. In fact, the only team from the Northeast region is 20th-ranked Boston University, which shut out Brown, 2-0, last week.

Long, Long Time Ago: Harvard's 4-0 start is the team's best since 1972, when many players on the current Harvard roster were not even born. Harvard's 1972 team streaked to 6-0 before losing its first game.

Stylin' Swaim: Sophomore Derek Swaim may have had to sit out most of yesterday's contest against UNH, but his clutch performances against Yale and Connecticut earned him the distinction of Ivy League Player of the Week.

Swaim scored the winning goal against Connecticut last Wednesday with 36 seconds remaining, and he also tallied the decisive goal in overtime against Yale.

Big Season for Big Red: Cornell brought its overall record to 3-2 this past week with wins over Oneonta and Pennsylvania. The Big Red has now matched its total win total from last year (3). Against Penn, senior Ted Lesh tallied the game-winning goal, the Big Red's first victory over the Quakers since 1986.

The biggest story in Ithaca is freshman goalie Quinn O'Sullivan. who leads the Ivies in both overall and Ivy goalkeeping.