Enterprise Primary School has an ambitious vision long in the making. Two years long, if you count the time that Coach Travis Bess has invested in turning just another ‘town’ school into a well-oiled machine.
The Campbellville institution has gone from mere participants to genuine title contenders in the Courts Optical Pee Wee Schools U-11 tournament.
Their previous best finish in the tournament was fifth place in the 2022 edition, under the tutelage of the currant tactician. This year, they are in the semi-finals, facing a marauding Potaro Primary School—a challenge unseen or unheard of before.
Stabroek Sports caught up with Coach Bess and inquired about his and the team’s appreciation of their progression thus far. “We are very happy with the team performance; we still have room for improvement, but the effort from the kids for the past five to six weeks has been great”.
While under the label of being a school in the capital city, full of advantages, it has been far from the case.
One of the major challenges for coach Bess has been “the fact that we don’t have a ground to train in; we train in the school yard, which is full of sand; we have not been able to put in the work that we need to; in football, if you train hard in sand, you can injure your players, which is never good”.
On the flipside, the impact of individuals has helped Redeemer, with outstanding players such as their skipper Ariel Hamilton, Vice-captain David De Costa, and Shivraj Persaud stepping up at various stages of the tournament to seal their team as top contenders for the title.
Look ahead to what is sure to be an epic battle. Bess’ charges are not trying to get ahead of themselves in terms of results. However, their intention is to win on Saturday. According to Bess, “we have been scouting Potaro Primary, and we will be looking to exploit their weakness”.
“Our intention is to get all the way to the final and push to win it all. We are focused on the Potaro game, and after that, we set our sights on what needs to be done”.
Redeemer has bettered their best ever placement, and now heading into the semi-finals of 2023, they will seek to win it all.
