Luke Albright threw six shutout innings, Nick Elsen cracked a grand slam, and Collin Mathews had four hits and four driven in as Kent State evened the series with the Dayton Flyers on Saturday in an 11-3 win at Woerner Field.

The Flashes got on the board early on Saturday, scoring in their first at bat. Cam Touchette led the game off with a double and Collin Mathews drove him in with a two-bagger of his own.  Kent State pushed another run across in the fourth as Grant Vera delivered a rbi groundout to score Michael McNamara.

Nick Elsen busted the game open in the fifth. After singles by Michael Turner and Collin Mathews, Mack Timbrook was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Elsen then powered one over the center field wall for his second homer of the series. The grand slam made it a 6-0 ball game.

That was plenty of support for Luke Albright, who ran his scoreless streak to 11 innings with six frames of shutout baseball. He limited the Flyers to five hits over the six innings, walking one while striking out five. The righty worked out of a bases loaded jam in the fourth but otherwise was in control on Saturday afternoon.

Dayton plated a pair in the seventh off of Jack Zimmerman but Jack Kartsonas came in and limited the damage and Kent State went right back to work in the eighth. The Golden Flashes rapped out four hits in the inning and Turner and Mathews each brought in a run as Kent State pushed their lead back out to six at 8-2.  They would pile on in the ninth, taking advantage of a pair of Dayton errors to score three times.

Mathews had the big blow, a two-run double to right for his fourth hit of the game and third and fourth rbi on the afternoon. Dayton would score once more in the ninth to round out the scoring.

The win moves Kent State to 8-9 on the season while Albright moves to 4-2 on the year. Dayton is now 6-16 and Ben Olson falls to 0-5 . The two teams now head back to Kent State for two seven-inning games on Sunday. First pitch is set for 1 p.m.