charter franchise and championships The only remaining charter franchise in the NECBL, the Schooners began play as the Eastern Tides in 1994 in Willimantic, Connecticut. The team originally played home games at Eastern Connecticut State University. The NCAA Division III ballpark would remain the home of the Tides throughout their history in Connecticut. The New England Collegiate Baseball League was founded in 1993 as a five-team Connecticut league, where the Tides were the easternmost team, hence the name. Eastern was the only charter franchise to not take the name of its host community, Willimantic, which itself is a census-designated place in the town of Windham. The first season for the Tides would result in the franchise's first and only league championship. 1994 was the first (and last) season in league history that used a point system to determine the league playoff contenders, modeled after the system used by the Cape Cod Baseball League. Eastern finished the first round in third place at 10-10, 5 games back of the first place Bristol Nighthawks. However, the second half of the season saw Eastern rebound to a 14-5 record (not including one tied ballgame that was never finished), good enough for first place, a game and a half ahead of the Middletown Giants. Overall, the Tides ended the regular season with a record of 27-17-1. Eastern went on to defeat Bristol in the only best-of-five championship series in NECBL history. After falling in Game 1 3-2 at Bristol's Muzzy Field, Eastern rebounded to win the next two games at home, 3-2 and 3-1. The Tides traveled back to Bristol for Game 4, dropping the contest 4-3, before returning home to Eastern Connecticut State University's baseball field for a decisive Game 5, where the team crushed Bristol 11-2. University of New Haven catcher Bill Buscetto was the championship series MVP, batting .409 with 4 RBI. The win would crown the Eastern Tides as the first champions in NECBL history. In 2016, the Mystic Schooners posted the best regular season record in the league (29-15) and won the Southern Division Championship by sweeping the Newport Gulls for the second year in a row. This set up a league championship series against the Sanford Mainers. Mystic swept the series behind all league players Nick Mascelli (Wagner College), Chase Lunceford (Louisiana Tech), Rich Slenker (Yale), Martin Figueroa (Rhode Island) and Toby Handley (Stony Brook) to win its