Languishing in last place at the halfway stage of the Pan-Am Games three metre springboard final yesterday, Katura Horton-Perinchief focused hard, knowing she had to put in an excellent dive if she was to get her head above water.

The problem was the sixth dive of ten in her programme was her least favourite and one she had had difficulty in executing on a number of occasions.

A forward, two and a half somersault with pike with a difficulty of 2.4 stood between her and a probable wooden spoon finish at Santo Domingo's Olympic Acquatic Centre. Launching herself into the air, she made each turn and entered the water with a minimal splash. It was by far and away the best dive she has performed at this meet and the broad smile on leaving the water said it all.

OK, it was never going to win her a medal, or even put her in the middle of the pack with the judges awarding her marks ranging from 5.5 to seven, but it did haul her past her nearest rival and into 12th place out of the 13 competitors.

It was a position she would consolidate throughout the remainder of the competition and she finished with a total of 383.76 points. That put her almost 80 clear of the diver she replaced at the foot of the standings, Carolyn Gutierrez of the host nation.

What's more her overall performance saw her get to within three points of 11th placed Milena Sae of Brazil.

"Actually, I don't like the dive," confessed Horton-Perinchief of the one that turned her performance. "It's actually one of my most inconsistent dives. The back two and a half is usually the one I count on but I missed it.

"It was nice to get a front two and a half, it was my first optional in the list, so I decided to put it first. Even though it's inconsistent, if it's good it's really good."

Horton-Perinchief said she did not look at the board to see where the dive moved her, concentrating solely on her scores.

"I look at my scores and that keeps the nerves to a minimum, concentrating on what I'm doing," she said.

Overall, the young Islander, who is based in Texas, says there is plenty of room for improvement, but she believes she is heading in the right direction.

"My first five dives definitely could have been done better," she said. "The reason is that I haven't been training for those ones. That's because we were under the impression that it was a different format. We were supposed to only do five dives at the beginning and they were the last five that we did today, so that was a little bit of a surprise."

Her entry into the water was one area she singled out for some criticism. "On my optionals, the tops were good but I was missing the bottom a little bit on everything," she said. "That's what I have to work on."

Horton-Perinchief does not believe she has to do anything too drastic to improve, just fine-tune what she is already doing.

"I think I am on the right track," she said. "I am doing well, my dives are fine. I do have to get a bigger twister. My twister is a 2.4 and most of them are doing 2.7s and 2.8s.

"The other dives are fine, I just have to work on getting consistent."

As for this season, the Pan-Ams mark the end of competition. "I am going to go home and relax on the beach, do a little bit of weights and just try and stay in shape until I go back," she said.

"University season starts in October but we will start training as soon as we get back later this month."

At the other end of the standings, it was a Canadian double with Blythe Hartley taking gold (504.63) and Emilie Heymans silver (502.17). Bronze went to Brazil's Juliana Veloso (482.22).