When the final horn sounded last weekend and the Mahtomedi High girls soccer team’s second consecutive Class 2A state championship was secured, Zephyrs’ goalkeeper Harlow Berger dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the U.S. Bank Stadium turf.
There was gratitude and celebration in the action, but it was mostly to seek relief. The 6-foot-3 backstop’s right shoulder had popped out of the joint and then back in when she crashed to the ground to block a Blake cross with seven minutes remaining.
Mahtomedi midfielder Charlotte Monette, center top, jumps into the arms of goalkeeper Harlow Berger as they celebrate with their teammates after defeating Mankato East 2-1 during the Class 2A Semifinal of the Girls State Soccer Tournament at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)
“I was super happy, but mostly I was in a lot of pain and I needed to go to the floor,” said Berger, whose sparkling, 12-save performance powered Mahtomedi to its 12th state crown. “It was constant pain, but I knew it was worth it.”
Berger, who is committed to play at the University of St. Thomas next season, has been undergoing tests, including an X-ray and an MRI to determine the extent of the injury and how best to treat it. It’s safe to say, however, that the 17-year old has the fortitude to overcome whatever the diagnosis might be.
Berger’s father, Steve, was one of 60 people killed during a 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival. Her mother, Joanna, a recreational marathon runner, died in 2019, five years after suffering a massive stroke that severely curtailed her movement.
“It’s a sad story, but also a story of triumph,” said Mahtomedi coach Dave Wald, a longtime math teacher at the school who taught Joanna Berger during the 1990s. “It’s amazing how much certain kids have to go through and you don’t always realize the heavy baggage they carry with them.”
Joanna Krusell married Steve Berger, a former basketball standout at Wauwatosa West High in suburban Milwaukee, who also played at St. Olaf College. The couple divorced in 2017 and Steve, a 6-foot-6 financial advisor known for his booming voice and enveloping hugs, was celebrating his 44th birthday in Las Vegas when he was killed on Oct. 1 of that year.
“He was very handsome and he had a presence about him,” said Bob Krusell, Joanna’s father. “Harlow was a daddy’s girl and if he’d go to her game, you knew who he was.”
Father and daughter loved to fish together and of his children, Bob Krusell and his wife, Pat, believe the tragedy was hardest on Harlow, who was 9 at the time. She and her siblings lived with their maternal grandparents after their father’s passing, but the oldest, Hannah, is now 23 and out on her own, and Harrison, 20, is a University of Minnesota student.
Harlow Berger now spends considerable time at the house of a friend and club soccer teammate, Nina Meyer, who attends Hill-Murray and whose parents have treated her as one of their own. She’s dealt with academic and mental-health issues but is outgoing, mature and articulate. Patricia Krusell said her granddaughter has gained a stronger sense of self and her emotions through counseling at her school and her religious faith.
Pat Krusell and Harlow worked on a college application essay in which the senior wrote about how “trauma creates change you don’t choose, but healing is about creating change you do choose.” It went on to discuss the idea of gaining relief through intentional living and not merely drifting through life.
Harlow Berger said her mother tended to put “everybody before herself, and I’ve taken that from her.” Combined with a tendency to internalize her emotions, the teenager hasn’t always been on solid emotional ground. October is always a difficult month, and her coaches have learned to gently check in on a more frequent basis and realize why her focus may wander at that time of year.
“Sometimes it hits home pretty hard,” said Berger, noting she went through multiple therapists before finding one with whom she deeply connected. “It can be simple things, like hearing someone say ‘my mom and dad’ and realizing I don’t have that.
“My therapist makes me really think about things and pushes me to dig into my thoughts. I don’t say ‘I don’t know’, anymore, I dig into why I feel the way I feel.”
Berger acknowledges she suffers from anxiety and depression and plans to major in psychology at St. Thomas in the hopes of becoming a therapist herself. She also is poised to join a Tommies women’s soccer team that won’t bring back a starting goalkeeper after failing to win a conference game this fall.
“I’ve gotten confidence from sharing my story and hope it can impact people positively,” said Berger, who wears jersey No. 43 as a way to connect herself with her father, whose sports number was 42. “A lot of people at my school see me as an athlete who gets everything she wants, but nobody knows the true story. I hope this makes other people want to tell theirs.”
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