In a night captivated by offense, the Oakland University women’s soccer team came away with a 6-2 victory over Youngstown State in the first round of the 2013 Horizon League Championship.

The Grizzlies were led by junior forward Kyla Kellermann, who tallied two goals and two assists, all coming in the first half. With the victory, OU (10-8-1) moves on to the semifinal round to face No. 2 seed Wright State on Friday, Nov. 8 at 4 p.m. in Milwaukee.

The Grizzlies jumped out to an early 3-0 lead by the 11^th minute of the first half, with Kellermann opening up the scoring with a rocket from the top of the box assisted by Abigail Haelewyn and Brianne Horne.

Youngstown State fired back with two goals of their own to cut the early deficit to one, but OU was able to regroup with two more scores to end the half with a 5-2 lead.

Kellermann shed some light on the effort on the team’s scoring outburst.

“No team’s going to go down without a fight in these games,” Kellermann said. “Youngstown State responded when we let down for a few minutes so we had to pick it back up, we finished strong and that’s the beauty of the playoffs.”

The commanding lead proved to be too much for the Penguins, as OU maintained their defensive intensity to secure the lead. San Cartier capped off the night with a goal in the 53^rd minute off a long pass from defender Aly Rawson to make it 6-2.

Kellermann came up big for the Grizzlies, something OU interim head coach Dave Morgan knew to expect out of his junior forward.

“It’s tournament time, and (Kellermann) thrives on tournament time,” Morgan said. “I knew that when I recruited her. She’s a gamer big-time, when the games are up, she really comes out to play.”

Wright State (8-5-4, 5-1-1) was awarded the No. 2 seed following a 1-0 Horizon League win over Cleveland State last Friday. Coach Morgan emphasized that playing within themselves will be the key for his team in the next round.

“Our game is to play our style, and if we stick with our style I think we can compete with anyone in our conference,” Morgan said. “Wright State’s a quality team. They got a great keeper, they got some key players up top, very solid backline.

“If we keep possession of the ball and set up in their half when we get there, I would look for a similar result like tonight. Maybe not by the spread it was, but I certainly look for a top performance from the team.”