Rising Muhlenberg sophomore Ariella Lerner played for Team Israel at the 2019 U19 Women's Lacrosse World Championship. And she wasn't the only Mule representative - incoming freshman Jula Tully played goalie for Team Ireland.

Lerner wrote about her experience, including a heartwarming act of generosity by her team:

I started volunteering with Team Israel Lacrosse when I was in Israel for my bat mitzvah nearly six years ago. On that visit, in addition to donating equipment to Team Israel Lacrosse, I had the opportunity to go to an elementary school in Ashkelon and teach the sport of lacrosse to elementary school children. At that time, lacrosse was brand new to Israel.
 
Over the last several years I have had the opportunity to play in several events with Team Israel Lacrosse in the States and actually played against them when I represented Team USA in the Maccabi games in the summer of 2017. My family has strong ties to Israel as my mother was born in Haifa and I maintain an Israeli passport.
 
This summer, everything came full circle when I was asked to represent Team Israel in the U19 Women's Lacrosse World Championship, which was held in Peterborough, Ontario, in early August. The team was comprised of eight players from the United States and 10 players from Israel.
 
Four days before the tournament started, we all met in Peterborough for training and other team activities. As I was introduced to the girls from Israel, several of them were from Ashkelon and some attended the school I taught lacrosse at several years ago. Other girls I actually played against in the Maccabi games.
 
We all quickly bonded over the two things we had in common – our passion for lacrosse and our love for the country we were representing in Canada. 
 
The tournament took place at two colleges in Peterborough. We lived in the college dorms with the other teams and we got to know the players from many of the other countries. There were 22 teams from around the world competing in the tournament.
 
The night before the first official game, there was an opening ceremony where each team carried their country's flag into the stadium to the sound of their country's national anthem. Israel played in a division with Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Belgium and Haudenosaunee.
 
After competing in pool play, we then played teams outside of our division. We ended up playing against Kenya, a game that was delayed due to rain. Once the game started, we noticed that the girls from Kenya were sliding around on the turf as they only had sneakers, no turf shoes or cleats. We ended up beating Kenya soundly and then went on to play Belgium the following day.
 
However, after the Kenya game, the parents of Team Israel decided to go out and buy cleats for each Kenyan player. We asked the Kenya coach the shoe size of each girl and told her not to tell her girls as we wanted to surprise them. The Kenya coach had her team attend our game against Belgium. Following the game, we handed out the cleats to the girls from Kenya, and it is a moment I will never forget. All the Kenya players were so elated, they were hugging everyone on our team. It really was what this "world" tournament should be about. The video of the event can be seen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/espn/status/1159589863768940545
 
Team Israel finished the tournament with 5 wins and 3 losses and in 17th place. I personally finished with 23 goals and 5 assists, MVP of one match and 11th in total points of all participating players. 
 
While the wins, losses and goals may be forgotten one day, the players I met, the people I bonded with and the hugs from the girls from Kenya will never be forgotten.