Fourth in a series
Rafael Jackson, newly confirmed by the Legislature as commissioner of the Tourism Department, reaffirmed his support for maintaining the territory’s six mainland offices last week before leaving St. Thomas for New York, where he planned to look into relocating the office there – possibly to the Empire State Building.
He said his objective was to locate suitable space at “considerably lower rent” than the $101,412 the territory is paying per year for 2,634 square feet in a building next to Radio City Music Hall.
Jackson also told the Source that the Tourism Department is “now in phase one” of getting its Internet web site up and running and that his “in-house web site expert,” Jean Hodge, based in the St. Thomas office, was in Atlanta earlier this month “working with IBM, who is developing the information for the web site.”
Coordination on the development of the web page is being done out of the Tourism office in Atlanta, Assistant Commissioner Monique Sibilly-Hodge said Friday. That is also where the government’s new national advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather/Atlanta, is based. Ogilvy & Mather is a major agency with worldwide reach, and IBM is one of its largest clients.
Jackson dismissed the figure of $1.5 million ascribed to him earlier in this series as the cost of getting the territory’s web site designed and in operation. “At no time did I ever state that the web page would cost $1.5 million,” he said. “I have always estimated the cost of the site at around $350,000.”
And he reaffirmed his commitment, for now, to maintain all six of the mainland offices – in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles – and to hire additional personnel to staff some of them. He said what he told senators at a May 22 meeting of the Agriculture, Economic Development and Consumer Protection Committee on St. Thomas was “that after the web site was up, I would consider phasing out two of them based on their performance. But first I have to be able to give them the tools to do the job. Those tools are bodies, so that someone is in the office and others can be out at shows and contacting travel agents. Give those offices a chance, under my leadership, to turn around.”
At the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association’s seventh annual Destination Symposium in April, Jackson announced that Ludwig Harrigan, longtime manager of the L.A. office, would be moving to New York to oversee all of the mainland office operations. However, he told the Source, he has had to change those plans.
“Harrigan has too many roots in California to move to New York City,” he said, and he is still looking for someone to take the leadership position on the East Coast.
Office space versus advertising space
The New York Tourism office, which Jackson managed for 19 years, now is located in a 2,634-square-foot space. The expenditure of $101,412 a year for rent has been criticized as unjustifiably high by hoteliers and lawmakers in recent months. Jackson said he expected to work out arrangements to lease space at a “considerably lower rent” and was going to check out space in the Empire State Building and another location across the street from that structure.
The lease on the current space runs through May 31, 2004. However, at the May 22 Senate committee meeting, Jackson noted that there “are ways to get out of leases.”
Richard Doumeng, president of the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association, suggested at that committee meeting that a New York area office could just as well be located in New Jersey, at “one-tenth the rent.” The idea doesn’t appeal to Jackson. “Only one office ever moved to New Jersey,” he said. “That was Aruba, and I don’t know what happened to them.”
What happened to Aruba, an island of arid, flat terrain and relentless tradewinds blowing sand, is that it emerged in the 1990s as the sleeper of the region, increasing its overnight visitor base to one of the highest among the smaller islands, for two apparent reasons. First, the government and private sector undertook successfully to educate the population about the advantages of ensuring that visitors have a positive experience. Second, the government committed multimillions of dollars to marketing the place.
Last year, Aruba spent more than $21 million to promote the destination, a figure exceeded only by the dominant players in the Caribbean – Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Jamaica. That compared to half a million for U.S.V.I. advertising, in what was the economically strapped territory’s smallest expenditure in many years.
According to Derryle Brown Berger, who has worked for decades with her family’s business on St. Thomas, Caribbean Travel, Aruba “is very popular because it’s very well done. I think the Virgin Islands has lost a lot of people who had been coming to the islands who switched to Aruba because they got treated better as tourists.” Also, she said, “Their prices are a lot more competitive.”
The Five-Year Operating and Strategic Financial Plan developed by the Economic Recovery Task Force named by Gov. Charles W. Turnbull last year shows that in 1997, apparently the most recent year for which figures were available, Aruba had 947,000 visitors, while the U.S. Virgin Islands had 2,128,000. The majority of V.I. visitors today are cruise ship day-trippers, however, while most Aruba visitors are overnight guests who pour much more money into the local economy.
Also, tapping into a growing trend and marketing it to advantage, “Aruba has turned into the time-share destination in the Caribbean,” Berger said.
The Aruba Tourism Ministry just announced that Delta Air Lines is adding a direct daily flight to the island from Atlanta on July 1 and another from New York in December; US Airways will add one from Philadelphia in November; Continental will fly four times weekly from Newark starting in December; and Air Aruba is starting daily service from Orlando on July 1. Since April, the U.S. Customs Service has been operating a pre-clearance service at the recently renovated Queen Beatrix International Airport.
Jackson noted that most of the territory’s competitors for tourist traffic in the Caribbean also have offices on the U.S. mainland – certainly in New York, if nowhere else – as well as in Europe and elsewhere.
Eugene Smith, manager of Villa Blanca on St. Thomas, pointed out that Caribbean islands outside the United States “do not have access to 800 numbers and domestic mail services from their home islands” to reach U.S. markets, and thus “it is necessary for them to maintain these stateside offices.” However, in his opinion, “it makes absolutely no sense for the U.S. Virgin Islands to maintain them.”
Beyond that, Smith said, his own property has seen no benefits lately from their being in place. “In the last six months of careful record keeping, we have not received one booking from a travel agent,” he said. “And in the last year, not one guest has mentioned the offshore offices as a source of their information.”
What’s selling the small hotel, he said, is its web site, which “went up almost two years ago and now garners 85 per cent of our bookings, tripling our previous occupancy rate.”
He noted that he makes it a priority to keep the web links up to date on his site, www.st-thomas.com/villablanca.
Foresight essential for a web site
There are millions of web pages up there in cyberspace, and there are tens of thousands of electronic graphic arts gurus making a living designing and building new ones every day. The neophyte client in search of expertise will be well advised to know precisely what he or she wishes to market and to whom he or she wishes to market it
long before, in the case of a client such as the V.I. government, putting out a Request for Proposals.
(Although the talks are under way with IBM, Jackson told the Source, a contract for the company to carry out the design project “has not been finalized.”)
Jackson says his vision is to have “a very interactive site.” He said, “It will have a lot of data and lists of all the hotels and businesses in the Virgin Islands and have links to travel agents in the area where the call is coming from for them to make their reservations.” He added, “It will not be an e-commerce site.” Once it’s operational, he said he expects to have “two regular employees here in the St. Thomas office to respond to the inquiries and to keep the site updated.”
From what he has seen of other Caribbean destinations’ marketing outreach via the Internet, Jackson said, “The web site that I’d like to see us emulate is Puerto Rico. They made mistakes, but we’re going to correct them.” He did not elaborate on the “mistakes.”
The official Puerto Rico tourism site is www.prtourism.com. The site includes lists of hotels with telephone numbers. It has no links to the web pages of the hotels or the island’s other tourism-related businesses and organizations. It refers inquiries to the offshore offices of the Puerto Rican Tourism Co. The three on-line sites it does link to, including that of the Puerto Rico Hotel and Tourism Association, offer more lists, with telephone numbers and in some cases e-mail addresses.
In contrast, the official tourism sites of the Jamaica Tourism Board at www.jamaicajtravel.com and the British Virgin Islands at www.bviwelcome.com. feature direct links to connect to commercially maintained web sites of hotels and other hospitality businesses. The pages appear to be well-maintained.
Less sophisticated but comprehensive, apparently up to date, and functioning when accessed by the Source are the web sites of Aruba at www.interknowledge.com/aruba, St. Lucia at www.stlucia.org, Trinidad and Tobago at www.visittnt.com, Barbados at www.barbados.org, and the Bahamas at www.bahamas.com.
Web links the way to boost bookings
While resorts in the territory that are a part of chains are marketed mainly through their parent operations, the independently owned and operated hotels, most of them “small” (defined in the industry as having fewer than 50 rooms), can be greatly affected by V.I. government advertising and could benefit tremendously from links to their own web sites.
Sam Boynes, owner of of the small, historic L’Hotel Boynes property on St. Thomas, says he gets 40 percent of his business from his web site. Without such sites, “the small hoteliers would all be bankrupt now, since we are receiving no support from the government tourism office,” he said.
Boynes was a hotel manager in Chicago before he moved to St. Thomas and worked at Frenchman’s Reef Beach Resort for many years before acquiring the hotel on Blackbeard’s Hill that now bears his family name. He said he has known and respected Jackson for many years but feels that the commissioner needs to recognize that times have changed for Virgin Islands tourism, and not only in terms of technology.
“Years ago people came to us,” Boynes said. “Now, we have to go looking for them – and meet them on their terms, which for most travelers today is the Internet.”
Smith backed that up, saying, “The tech world is evolving so fast that Jackson has to be able to hand over the reins to people who really know their stuff and not base the future on his previous experience.”
Todd Hunter, catering manager at St. John’s Westin Resort, gave a concrete example of the influence of the Internet as a marketing tool: Known among the Westin staff as “the director of romance,” he came aboard three years ago with responsibility, among other things, for marketing the property as a wedding and honeymoon destination. The year before he arrived, there were six weddings at the hotel; in the last year, he said, there have been more than 100. He attributed a lot of that growth to the Westin’s web presence.
“Most of the people who are getting married today grew up with computers,” he observed. “The Internet comes natural to them. That’s where they turn for information.”
He noted that the St. John Westin property’s web page, accessed through www.westin.com, focuses not only on the property itself but on the island of St. John through its visual appeals. “You look at our pictures of the beach and sunset, and that says it all. What else do you want?”
Boynes’s web site, www.hotelboynes.vi, focuses mainly on the unique appeal of the hotel itself. There are interior shots of the individually furnished hotel rooms, the story of Boynes’ search for his roots in the Caribbean and France, a brochure to download, music and a video. “All the technology was done right here on St. Thomas,” he said. “We don’t need to go off island for a good web site design.”
In an editorial June 17 commenting on topics addressed in the first three parts of this series, the Virgin Islands Independent and its sister newspaper, the St. Croix Avis, stated that “the real cost of building a world-class web site is well under $100,000 and could be as little as $30,000.” A local web site developer consulted on the matter put the figure at what he called a “generous $50,000.”
Even to access a web designer of major international stature, however, the Tourism Department need not have expended an inordinate amount of money – or any at all.
According to the Westin’s Hunter, the St. John property’s web page was designed two years ago by the professional who does “all the Starwood sites.” Starwood Hotels and Resorts, one of the largest hotel operating companies in the world, is the parent company of the Westin, Sheraton, W, Four Points and Luxury Collection chains.
“The person who designed the Westin St. John site was willing to do one free for the Tourism Department,” Hunter said. He contacted the department, then under the direction of Commissioner Wylie Whisonant, but “they never called him back.”
Wednesday: How hoteliers view their partnership with Tourism

A traffic investigation is under way into the death of a would-be good Samaritan, Luis O. Feliz, 52, whose car collided with another on the Melvin Evans Highway Friday night when he made a sudden left turn.
Police said Feliz, driving a 1998 Hyundai Excel, apparently crossed the left lane and struck a Ford Ranger pickup truck. Feliz was attempting to get onto the left shoulder, according to police, to assist a motorist who was stranded there with a flat tire.
The stranded driver was returning with a spare tire when the accident happened, said traffic commander Lt. William Harvey.
He said Feliz was a native of the Dominican Republic who lived in Estate Glynn.
Harvey said the initial investigation showed that alcohol did not play a role in the accident. Speeding tests will be done on the two vehicles involved.
Feliz died at the scene, Harvey said.

The second tropical depression of the Atlantic hurricane season degenerated into a mere westward moving tropical wave Sunday afternoon.
The depression, which formed Saturday about 2,075 miles east-southeast of the southern Windward Islands, had the potential of developing into a named tropical storm. However, cool water in the far eastern tropical Atlantic water prevented further development. At one point Sunday, a stronger-than-normal ridge of high pressure over the Atlantic forced the depression to move on a track south of due west.
According to Weather Channel specialists, if the depression had intensified it would have been the first time in many years that a storm system formed this early in the season, which opened June 1. The season runs through the end of November.
At 5:30 a.m. Monday, the tropical wave, the remnants of Tropical Depression Two, was located about 1,100 miles east of the southern Windward Islands, moving to the west at about 20 to 25 mph. The system shows no signs of redevelopment.

The second tropical depression of the Atlantic hurricane season degenerated into a mere westward moving tropical wave Sunday afternoon.
The depression, which formed Saturday about 2,075 miles east-southeast of the southern Windward Islands, had the potential of developing into a named tropical storm. However, cool water in the far eastern tropical Atlantic water prevented further development. At one point Sunday, a stronger-than-normal ridge of high pressure over the Atlantic forced the depression to move on a track south of due west.
According to Weather Channel specialists, if the depression had intensified it would have been the first time in many years that a storm system formed this early in the season, which opened June 1. The season runs through the end of November.
At 5:30 a.m. Monday, the tropical wave, the remnants of Tropical Depression Two, was located about 1,100 miles east of the southern Windward Islands, moving to the west at about 20 to 25 mph. The system shows no signs of redevelopment.

Starting Monday, for the eighth straight year, the St. John Festival – also known as the island's Fourth of July Celebration – will have something neither of the territory's other two carnivals has: a locally organized and operated Children's Village.
The project was conceived and brought into being by the St. John Community Foundation, which continues to be the main mover. This year, foundation executive director Mary Blazine said, two other groups are involved – Pine Peace School and the Family Career Community Leaders of America group at the Julius E. Sprauve School.
The idea came about eight years ago, Blazine said, because in the festival programing at that point, "there was nothing for the children. The carnival village just revolves around drinking and eating and music so loud your ears hurt. We thought it was important to give the children a place to be, with things to do."
Located in the V.I. National Park Visitor Center parking lot under the "tourist corral" tents as well as in the open air, the village is operated as a drug- and alcohol-free environment. It will be open nightly from 6 to 10 p.m. Monday through July 3.
Blazine noted that while the sponsoring organizations will have greeters and overseers on the premises at all times, the Children's Village is not a "baby-sitting" operation, and small children should be accompanied by adult supervisors or older siblings while in the area.
The kids' village this year will feature games of chance and skill such as a wheel of fortune, "strong man" test, bullseye crossbow, basketball toss, balloon darts and ring toss. For the smaller children, Blazine said, "there's a little duck pond where they fish and catch little fish and ducks, and everybody wins a prize."
Cold soft drinks, cotton candy and popcorn will be available, and the Sprauve FCCLA students will be selling chocolate bars as a separate fund-raising project.
The revenues from the tickets sold for the games and refreshments will be divided among the three sponsoring organizations, Blazine said, and the Community Foundation will redistribute its part of the proceeds in the form of "mini-grants to school groups and other youth organizations on St. John throughout the year."
She said the village operation relies on "incredible volunteer work and the many businesses that give us donations." Major sponsors of this year's Children's Village are The West Indian Company Ltd., V.I. Telephone Corp., Caribbean Villas of St. John, AT&T of the Virgin Islands and Baker Magras & Associates.
This year, the undertaking has added an adults-only component. "For the first time, we are having bingo for the adults – for ages 18 and older," Blazine said. The foundation has secured the requisite permit from the Licensing and Consumer Affairs Department, she said, and games will be called continuously during the hours the Children's Village is open.
Also for adults, there'll be a raffle for a donated week's stay at Villa Claudia, a luxury rental property on the island. Raffle tickets, priced at $5, will be available any time the village is open, and the winner will be drawn at the end.
And, oh, yes, the village will feature a clown to entertain the kids. The person behind the funny face and fright wig will be none other than Blazine herself. "I couldn't get anybody else to do it this year," she said cheerfully, "but it's working out perfectly. My outfits are taken care of for a week."

Delivering a festival on time and within budget is the challenge facing Leona Smith, chair of the St. John Festival & Cultural Organization, the entity which produces the island's annual Fourth of July Celebration.
Like her counterparts for St. Thomas's V.I. Carnival and St. Croix's Crucian Christmas Festival, Smith finds herself running the annual event with less government money this fiscal year than last. In the case of St. John, the budget was cut by a third – to $50,000 from $75,000.
But after a little adjustment to the schedule and a lot of advance work securing private-sector sponsors, Smith said she's confident the celebration will break even.
"The only decision weighted by financial concerns was to shorten the village to six days," she said. This year's village, honoring Harry Daniel, will open on Thursday, instead of the usual Monday before the week of the Fourth of July finale.
Smith said she gets her work done with the help of 15 die-hard volunteers, some of whom have been helping put together what's traditionally been called the Fourth of July Celebration for more than 20 years.
Half a dozen committee members are responsible for overseeing the prince and princess pageant, the queen show, the festival bicycle race, the village operations, Pan-O-Rama and the fireworks. In addition to chairing the overall festival committee, Smith also organizes the food fair and the Fourth of July parade.
Private and/or not-for-profit promoters mobilize their own resources and produce other official festival events – this year, the Calypso Show, the Boat Show and Boat Race, Children's Village and the Emancipation Day cultural program. Some rely on corporate sponsor; the children's program is presented by the St. John Community Foundation in cooperation with other community entities.
The V.I. National Park puts on the July 3 Cultural Day program in Cruz Bay. Park ranger Denise Georges, who also organizes the annual Annaberg Cultural Fair for Black History Month each February, says she held the first Cultural Day observance on Emancipation Day in 1996 as a way to remind people of the holiday's historic significance.
"It's really for emancipation and to remind people of the hardship. I really think we've lost the meaning of our celebration," Georges said.
Overall, committee volunteers start their planning for the next festival almost as soon as the last rocket fades from the Fourth of July sky on the one before, Smith said. Monthly meetings begin in August or September. By April, the committee is getting together once a week.
Having volunteers coordinate their own events makes it possible for Smith to concentrate on the ones she runs, she said. "It frees me a little, but I still have to be there to make sure" that everything runs smoothly, she said.
And when that's the case, the other volunteers help out around the concession stand.
Two of this year's early events showed signs of the new financial order – a listing of sponsors printed on the program booklets and proudly announced by event organizers.
The solicitation approach, Smith said, was to target potential sponsors and "write them a letter and give them a schedule. . . and ask them which events they wanted to sponsor."
The solicitation is ongoing, right down to the wire. This year, the committee has to cover the cost of the new stage purchased for the calypso show, prince and princess pageant and queen competition. And then, there's the fireworks.
The cost of the big bangs is pegged at $26,500 for this year's festival. So far, $10,000 has been raised, half of it sponsorship by Southern Energy Inc., the administration's proposed private-sector partner of the Water and Power Authority.
"We could use a few more sponsors," said Mary Hildebrand of the St. John Accommodations Council, who has been coordinating the fireworks finale of the Fourth of July Celebration for the last five years. She said solicitation from local businesses is continuing. "What we have to offer sponsors is good placement of their company banners in the waterfront area," she said, "and we still have some radio spot time."

Editor's note: For a separate story on St. John's Children's Carnival, click on Things to do.

The National Park Service took the first steps over the weekend in what will be a gradual move of offices and public reception and display operations to the new V.I. National Park Visitor Center in Cruz Bay.
As of 8 a.m. Sunday, visitors were welcomed to the reception area at the main entrance of the two-story creamy yellow facility with the burnt orange roof that is the most imposing waterfront structure now greeting ferry passengers from St. Thomas as they approach St. John.
The reception area features what park ranger Pat Dinisio described as a "huge desk" and initially has been stocked with the brochures, maps, postcards and bookstore materials that had been on display temporarily in recent months at the Morris F. DeCastro Clinic. The new facility is open daily from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Telephone service is not scheduled to be connected until July 1. Meantime, however, the ranger on duty can be reached at the cellular number 690-2497.
Dinisio said the new space is "big and airy, with a high ceiling and ceiling fans, lots of natural wood." The new exhibits to be installed are still being developed, she said, but some of the displays from the old visitor center may be moved in temporarily.
Also, she said, "The bookstore has a lot of new stuff on the way."
R.W. Jenkins, the park chief of maintenance and engineering, said other operations and offices will be moved into the building gradually in the next few weeks. "By the end of July we will be all the way in," he said.

In a pageant that proved the saying "Rain don' stop de carnival," 17-year-old Suzette Kelly emerged Saturday night as the queen of St. John Festival 2000.
Kelly won the judges over at the Winston Wells Ball Park as she and two other contestants braved an unexpected deluge midway through a four-hour contest.
The new queen formally began her reign along with the festival prince and princess, siblings Liyah and Imri Tonge, at the coronation ceremony Sunday afternoon in Cruz Bay Park.
In addition to taking the queen title, Kelly also won Miss Photogenic, Best Talent and Best Evening Wear honors in the competition. Anesta Charlemagne was judged Miss Popularity, and crowd favorite Latoya Browne won Best International Wear and Miss Congeniality.
The sudden cloudburst just after the end of the swimwear competition left many in the audience wishing they, too, were wearing bathing suits. The members of P'Your Passion, the house band for the show, tried to protect their music equipment from the water as spectators rushed for cover and the air hung heavy with the smell of wet hairspray.
Backstage, dry but hemmed in by shower dodgers, the contestants and their chaperones waited to see what Mother Nature would do. Queen Committee coordinator Nancy Powell and St. John Festival & Cultural Organization Committee chair Leona Smith held a pow-wow on the sodden stage with parents and chaperones and decided the show would go on.
Most of those in the crowd waited patiently, many lining up for fried chicken and johnny cakes at the concession operated by the festival committee. After a 90-minute timeout for mopping up and making electrical checks, the house lights dimmed and the competition resumed with the international segment.
A sizable segment of the audience cheered as Charlemagne appeared from backstage dressed in a cutaway ruffled samba shirt and bolero top with orange, yellow and fuchsia sleeves. Browne followed with her winning portrayal of a Pacific island maiden entering womanhood through a native ceremony. Kelly paid tribute to Gambia in a fitted shirt of swirling African prints, an elaborate bronze neck ring and a towering headpiece.
The rest of the show followed quickly with few interruptions. Kelly played the winning talent entry in pajamas, as someone rising from sleep to give thanks in song for a new day. Browne tap danced in a mini-skirt while performing magic tricks. Charlemagne donned white gloves to accentuate the gestures of an interpretative dance before a giant valentine card featuring portraits of her mother and father.
Rose pink, shimmering sky blue and burnt orange made up the colors of the evening wear presentation. To capture this segment, Kelly appeared in a floor-length sleeveless fish-tail gown encrusted with crystals from waist to hem.

Airport blanked Innovative Communication Corp. 4-0 Saturday evening in second-round action of the Government and Industrial Coed Slowpitch Softball League Farrington Division at Emile Griffith Park.
ICC, the division's regular season champions, ended the season in an uproar. For finishing first, the team got the first-round bye. ICC fans, wearing lime green T-shirts, stayed through a fifth inning rain delay. However, ICC got off to a cold start in the first game of the second round, clearly missing absent slugger Athniel "Bobby" Thomas.
Airport pitcher Dale Rhymer continued his dominance on the mound. On Friday, after taking a ball off his right pitching hand that split a fingernail, he gave up only one run for the rest of that game as his team defeated WAPA to advance to this series. Rhymer has not allowed an earned run in two playoff games. He not only kept ICC scoreless Saturday but did not even allow a runner to reach third, giving up eight scattered hits in seven innings.
ICC pitcher Henry "Trouble" Richards also pitched well, allowing no earned runs for the game. However, ICC made six costly errors defensively that cost the the team all of the Airport runs.
Airport scored first in the second inning. Terry Browne reached on a fielding error by ICC first baseman Antonio "Pumpkin" Lewis. Rhymer then reached on another fielding error by ICC shortstop Richard Penn, and Browne scored on another error, this time a throwing one on the same play by ICC left fielder Robert Crossley.
The second run came in the sixth inning, thanks to another throwing error by Crossley, and Airport padded the lead with two more runs in the seventh.

National Guard prevailed over Health, 12-11, Friday night in the start of the second round of the Watlington Division of the Government and Industrial Coed Slowpitch Softball League at Emile Griffith Park.
In the first game of the best-of-three series, the Guardsmen held Health scoreless for the first three innings, erupting for five runs in the bottom of the third to take a 6-0 lead.
Kenneth Alexander reached on an error by Health second baseman James Petty Jr. to lead off the inning. Calvin Jackson followed with a bloop double in left field. Kareem Henley and Alford Richards continued the double hit parade. National Guard pitcher Gail Joseph reached on a fielder's choice. Joseph then scored the fifth run of the inning.
Health came back with three runs in the top of the fourth. Cyril "Zamba" Andrews tripled in Petty and Morris Potter to start the rally. He later scored the third run of the inning.
The guardsmen scored a run in the bottom of the fourth inning to extend their lead to 7-3, but their defense abandoned them in the top of the fifth, as they made four costly errors that helped Health score four unearned runs. From then on, it was a see-saw contest.
Guard tacked on another run in the bottom of the fifth to go back on top, 8-7. Health answered with three more runs in the top of the sixth to retake the lead, 10-8. The guardsmen again scored a run in the bottom of the sixth to close the margin to 10-9. Health scored a run in the top of the seventh to take a two-run lead.
With one out, Joseph singled to left field. Denise Dawson pinch ran for Joseph. Gilbert Henley singled up the middle as Dawson used her speed to motor over to third base. Jason Lewis reached on an error by the Health shortstop that scored Dawson. Henley later scored on a fielder's choice to tie the game at 11-11.
Health pitcher Andrews then loaded the bases by intentionally walking Patrick Farrell to face Margo Rodriquez. She popped out to the shortstop Potter for the second out of the inning. However, Andrews then walked Alexander on four pitches to end the game.