WINDSOR, Mass. — Windsor's Pearl Sutter had a lot to do this summer.

 

Researching her college thesis, taking the Medical College Admission Test, getting ready for her senior year a Drew University in Madison, N.J

 

And, she learned in February, traveling halfway around the world to represent her country in the world's second largest quadrennial sports festival.

 

Sutter in February was chosen to join the American team at the World Maccabiah Games in Israel.

 

She left Tuesday on a 12-hour flight and will spend the next week getting ready for the competition, which runs from July 4 to 18.

 

"I find it really hard to express how excited I am," Sutter said on Monday. "I'm so excited and really, really proud that I'm going to get to do this: represent my school, my country, my sport. This to me is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I didn't think I'd ever be able to say I've done."

 

Sutter has been dreaming about participating in the games, but she has not been dreaming about it as long as you might think.

 

"When I first heard about the Maccabiah Games, I had just started fencing about three months before," she said, referring to her decision to pick up the sport as a freshman at Drew. "I had no idea they even existed. One of my friends said to me when he learned I picked up fencing, 'My dad competed in fencing in the Maccabiah Games a long, long time ago.' I said, 'What are those?' "

 

They are known as the "Jewish Olympics" and, like the other Olympics, they only come around every four years. The Maccabiah Games attract 9,000 athletes from 78 countries.

 

After the host nation, the second largest contingent is Maccabi USA, which includes more than 1,200 athletes.

 

Three of those competitors are students at Drew University, where Sutter last winter compiled an 88-23 record competing in saber, the highest win total on a team that finished 39-9.

 

The Mount Greylock Regional School graduate has learned a lot about the sport in a few years of college, and she is looking forward to gaining more exposure as part of the American team in Israel.

 

"I picked it up fast, but I've only been exposed to one coach and one team," she said. "I'm excited to have different teammates and a different style of coach.

 

"The coach I have in college has an American style. The coach of Maccabi USA [Dmitriy Guy] is Russian and was, I believe, a Russian national champion in the sport at one point."

 

Guy founded the La Jolla Fencing Academy in Southern California. According to its website, he is "a former professional saber fencer for the USSR fencing team" and "a Soviet Union National Champion and has been a finalist at two Junior World Championships."

 

Sutter said she will be training in the mornings for the Maccabiah competition. Her event is scheduled for July 9-12. On afternoons before the event and after competing, she plans to take advantage of her first trip to Israel and see as much of the countryside as she can.

 

It is going to be a nice break from the schedule she kept up this spring.

 

"Studying for the MCAT and training and doing my research all at the same time," the neuroscience major said. "I don't recommend it to anyone. It was rough. I slept maybe two hours a night.

 

"You can take the MCAT earlier. I knew one or two people in the class above me who took it the winter of their junior year. I preferred the extra time to study after the finals in May. But at that point [when she picked her MCAT date], I didn't know I would be going to the Maccabiah Games. When you add the workouts, it adds up."

 

She left the books at home this week, but she does plan to find a little time in Israel to do some prewriting for the essays she will need for a second round of medical school applications.

 

"I'm so excited," she said on Monday morning. "It still hasn't quite hit me that I'm leaving tomorrow.

 

"I got the USA sweats in the mail and the team USA bag. And get emails and there are these conference calls on what I have to do. But it still hasn't hit me, I suppose.

 

"Maybe when I get on the plane, it will."