Was it at night?
Seriously, congrats... You really (pardon the pun) hammered that one out, and just in time, eh?
Now... Just my opinion, but you might have placed better if you'd had a bit bigger base to avoid the dreaded "over-hang"... When I judged dioramas, I took points off for over-hang... Some would argue that criteria with me, but I remain unswayable on that point (and "cropping" aircraft & vehicles as well)... That is, unless it's specifically noted in the judging criteria that it's to be ignored... Over-hang makes it look like you tried to get away with making the story fit the base rather than the base fit the story...
I once gave a big goose-egg to a guy that duplicated a photo of a Luftwaffe pilot painting a kill-marking on the tail of his '109, even had the photo next to the model... In the photo, it looked fine... You could see enough of the tail to know it was a '109, but on a land-scaped base, with just a 1/32 scale tail section standing there on it's tailwheel, it looked ridiculous... A piece of an airplane and a guy painting somethin' on it... There were a couple other issues as well, too... Although his figure was really, REALLY well-painted, with beautiful blending of shadows and highlights, and really good work on the facial features & blending... BUT... He painted the whites of the eyes white, with the inevitable "pop-eyed" results... Ker-plunk again...Had he entered it in the "Small-Scale Figures" category, he probably would have done far better, or if he'd put it in a shadowbox...
ANY-way, Kudos to you again, Pard... Be sure to send that sucker into the mag's Reader Gallery... You deserve some more recognition than what's available here in the Forum, IMNSHO... Even if you can't read a tape measure, lol..