HAYWARD — It's the same old story and it's the same good news for Stanislaus State as the Warriors opened the final regular season series with a 5-2 win over Cal State East Bay on Thursday.

The formula is the same for another CCAA victory: Score some runs early and let the awesome pitching shut-down the opponents. Jordan Kron, the houdini, escaped jams and pitched seven innings. Then, he handed it over to Jarrett Veiga and Nick Voumard to nail down the win as the Warriors move to 32-15 overall and 21-14 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

With one more win on Friday, or another Cal State Monterey Bay loss (they lost to Chico State 3-1 on Thursday), the Warriors would lock-up second place in the CCAA North. If that happens, Stan State will be either the No. 3 or No. 4 seed in the upcoming conference tournament.

Gino Franceschetti was the hitting star on Thursday, going 2-for-4 with a triple, a homer and drove in two runs. He also scored twice. He hit a triple in the first that scored Nick Ippolito and got himself home on a throwing error by the left fielder to make it 2-0. John Holleran's two-out single up the middle would score Aldo Koutsoyanopulos for three runs in the first inning.

Franceschetti also belted a solo homer to left-center in the third and Stan State tagged on a fifth run in the sixth on a sac fly by Nathan Chunn.

Kron gave up 10 hits, including three doubles, in seven innings but did not let the Pioneers hurt him too much. A two-out, two-run single in the second was all East Bay can get on the board.

East Bay (24-22, 15-19 CCAA) got two runners on in the third, but Kron escape that jam with a fly out. The Pioneers again rallied with two on in the fourth inning but the Warrior ace struck out Marcus Wise to end the inning. In the home half of the sixth, a leadoff double was later erased at the plate when Kyle Nixon gunned down Daniel Goodrich at home for the second out of the inning.

In all, Kron stranded seven Pioneers on base.

Then it was Veiga and Voumard time once again. Veiga faced three batters (Goodrich, who was hit by pitch, was doubled-up at first on a fly out) in the eighth. In the ninth, Voumard walked the leadoff batter but got a double play ahead of another single. Voumard then struck out Wise on a 2-2 pitch to earn his now NCAA Division II leading 14th save.

Ippolito, Koutsoyanopulos, Charlie Gaff and Adam Nascimento all had two hits a piece.