Southampton's Cerullo Overcomes Odds, Breaks School Record in 55

There was more than just a school record at stake when Kyla Cerullo took to the starting line of the preliminary race of the 55-meter dash at the girls Small Schools Indoor Track Championships at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood on Saturday. It wasn’t all that long ago that Kyla and her family wondered if she’d ever have a healthy life.

When Cerullo was around 3 years old, doctors found that she had an off heartbeat. Kyla’s mother, Amy, said doctor’s described it to her as not an arrhythmia but just an off beat. As Kyla grew older, she had continued heart issues that many doctors could not figure out, until they saw Dr. Eric Scott Silver of New York-Presbyterian Columbia University, where they figured things out a bit. After a yearlong monitor, a doctor found that Kyla had an ectopic heartbeat, which is a type of arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, where the heart contracts, or beats, too soon. Many with the condition feel like their heart skips a beat or is racing or fluttering. While ectopic heartbeats are rather common, most people have about 4,000 extra beats per day. Kyla, her mother said, was found to have 60,000 extra beats per day.

After Kyla woke up one night feeling like she was going to faint, doctors said it was time to have surgery to find the root cause of the issue. Doctors went into Kyla’s chest with a camera and found that she was born with an extra artery attached to her heart that was pumping more blood through it than normal. Had doctors not found the extra artery, Kyla wouldn’t have lived past her 20s, most likely, Amy Cerullo said, since her heart was basically working overtime to keep up.

So on August 5, 2016, Kyla went in for surgery, and with it being such a rare occurrence, doctors had medical students watch in. They severed the extra artery, and after a successful surgery and periodic check ups thereafter, Kyla was cleared to resume a normal life.

Which is why her new school record of 7.55 seconds in that preliminary race on Saturday is so meaningful to her, her mother, family, friends, coaches and teammates. Kyla broke Anyse Bonner’s 2007 school record of 7.64 seconds. Her time in the prelims advanced her to the finals in what was a very competitive field, where she went on to place fifth after crossing the finish line in 7.67 seconds.

Kyla, now a junior, said she doesn’t think about her heart problem and surgery too often anymore but she certainly did when she saw she had finally broken the school record, something she had been looking to do since the start of the season.

“After I saw the time and that I beat the record, I was in such shock,” she said. “It’s crazy to think that I can even be able to do it after everything. It was very scary. Where I’m at now, knowing that I’m able to sprint and be at the top, it’s crazy the stuff I can do now that I couldn’t do then.

“Every time I see her run, I can not believe we’re here. It’s like going from one extreme to the next,” her mother said. “Every time she puts her sneakers on, I get very nervous and just think about her heart.”

Southampton head coach Eddie Arnold was confident that with the stronger and faster competition at the Small Schools meet that Kyla would get stronger and faster as well.

“But this kid came a long way,” he said. “And mom, every time she runs, she cries. She just cannot believe the condition that she was in to be able to do what she is doing right now.”

Arnold also knew that Kyla had been improving incrementally each week from the first race of the season in December, when she ran a 7.92 race, to now.

“She’s improved tremendously and it has to do with her being locked in. She knows what she wants,” he said. “We talk a lot as far as what she has to do and she really listens to the race strategy and the tips I give her. She puts the extra time in, stays after practice, and the last two or three weeks we’ve been sharpening her up and it’s paid off. And her teammate, Diamond Brown, has been there by her side, working together with her to put that extra effort in.”

Brown competed in the preliminary 55 with Kyla and finished ninth in 7.91 seconds.

Cerullo will now advance to the Section XI Championships, also known as the state qualifier, back at Suffolk-Brentwood this Monday, February 13, where she will be running against sprinters from both large and small schools. She will be gunning for a spot to the state meet but, at the very least, will be looking to improve upon her new school record. If history is any indication, she’s got a good chance at doing just that.

Whether or not she will be joined by any of her teammates was still up in the air as of press time.

Cerullo also ran on the 4x200-meter relay team along with Brown, Jennifer Cruz and Emily Zukosky that placed ninth in a season’s best 1:56.78. Jeorgiana Gavalas placed 10th in the 1,500-meter race in 5:08.61. Sloane Edson leaped a personal best 31 feet 4 ¼ inches in the triple jump. Zukosky also reached a personal best in the same event at 30 feet 5 inches.

Southampton junior Christian Duggal placed second in the 600-meter run at the boys Small Schools Championships, which were at Suffolk-Brentwood on Sunday. He crossed the finish line in 1:26.33, just behind Amityville junior Abednego Compere, who crossed in 1:26.12. Thayer Schwartz finished 18th in the same race in 1:32.21. Thomas Armandi, a junior placed 14th in the shot put with a throw of 36 feet 9 inches.