Elwood's Mary Beth Dunnichay called her Olympic diving experience "amazing" following this morning's competition.

"The experience here was amazing," she said in an interview with NBC. "I really expected to be a lot more nervous than I was."

Dunnichay and synchronized diving partner Haley Ishimatsu, both 15 years old, finished fifth in the 10-meter platform contest at the Beijing Olympics with a score of 309.12.

Dunnichay and Ishimatsu were 20.94 points behind the bronze-medal team of Paola Espinoza and Tatiana Ortiz of Mexico and 54.42 points behind gold medalists Xin Wang and Ruolin Chen of China. The Australian team of Briony Cole and Melissa Wu took silver with a score of 335.16.

Each diving pair had five dives for their combined score. Dunnichay and Ishimatsu were in eighth place of the eighth teams going into their fifth and final dive, the most difficult dive of their set. They performed it in near unison and jumped in the standings to fifth, almost overtaking the fourth-place team of Germany's Annett Gamm and Nora Subschinski. The Germans finished just 1.17 points ahead of the Americans.

Dunnichay is the U.S.'s youngest Olympian at the 2008 Games and is the first from Madison County to compete in the Games since the early 20th Century. The 10-meter platform was Dunnichay's only event in Beijing. Ishimatsu, from California, will compete in the individual diving competition.

For more details about Dunnichay's performance, check The Herald Bulletin's Web site later today.