“We weren’t mentally prepared to be in the right spot at the right time,” Grewe said.

While the Spartans struggled defensively, they got off to a hot start offensively to take a 2-0 advantage in the bottom of the first.

After leadoff hitter Steve Gerstenberger lined a single to right field, freshman shortstop Jonathan Roof smoked a triple to deep left field on the first pitch he saw to bring home the senior third baseman and give the Spartans a 1-0 advantage. Roof came in to score two batters later, after junior left fielder Kyle Day’s fly ball dropped between the Chippewas’ second baseman and right fielder to give the Spartans an early 2-0 lead.

“I was pretty excited about how we came out — we had the best batting practice we’ve taken all year, by far (Wednesday),” Grewe said. “I was expecting a huge start, but their pitcher started throwing off-speed and kept us off balance a little bit, and then we just didn’t play good baseball.”

The rest of the game was bad baseball by the Spartans and good hitting by the Chippewas, who got one back in the next inning when catcher Dale “ripped an RBI double into the left-center field gap to cut the deficit in half.”

Senior pitcher Ryan MacFarlane and Central Michigan’s Jesse Hernandez combined to hold both teams scoreless until the sixth inning, when Noah Lankford’s pop fly to shallow center field fell between shortstop Roof, senior second baseman Brandon Doherty and freshman centerfielder Brandon Eckerle.

After stealing second, Lankford moved to third after Matt Faiman grounded out to Roof. It looked like MacFarlene was going to get out of the inning unscathed after striking out Rod Helsen for the second out, but Dale Cornstubble, who entered the game batting .169 on the season, struck again with an RBI single between third and short to tie the game, 2-2.

The game wasn’t tied long, and after Day led off the bottom of the inning with a single to left, senior right fielder Justin Potes homered to left to put MSU back up to two.

The two teams continued to trade runs as the Chippewas scored three in the top of the seventh to take a 5-4 lead. MSU answered back when junior catcher Eric Roof delivered with a two-out bases-loaded double to give the lead back to MSU at 6-5.

The scoring spree continued into the eighth when Central Michigan took the lead for good, scoring three runs — two of which came off a single by Sean Hoorelebeke — to take an 8-6 lead.

“If we had to take something out of this it’s that our bats woke up a little bit in this game,” said Potes, who went 2-for-5 with two RBIs. “We struggled a little bit late with those late runs and some mistakes, but as far as where we need to be as a team we’re all right offensively, which is where we’ve been struggling.”

Day led the Spartans with three hits, while Gerstenberger, Potes and Eric Roof each had two.

While Potes and Jonathan Roof were encouraged by how the Spartans hit, their coach was upset at the little things that cost them the game.

“We had guys thrown out at the plate, we’re throwing to the wrong bases, we looked liked we never played the game and that’s frustrating to me,” Grewe said. “I don’t mind losing if somebody beats us but I don’t like beating ourselves.”

The Spartans look to get back on the winning track with a home and home weekend series against Michigan. The first game of the series is at 6:35 p.m. Friday in Ann Arbor.