The New Jersey 5s advanced to the MLP championship for the third straight year after closing out their semifinal series with a 3-0 victory over the Brooklyn Pickleball Team on Saturday morning.

The second match of the series went just as smoothly as the first (also a 3-0 sweep on Friday), but the men’s doubles game between New Jersey’s Federico Staksrud/Will Howells and Brooklyn’s Christian Alshon/Riley Newman ended on a controversial moment.

With the 5s serving at 10-8, Newman approached the referee to discuss calling a timeout or challenging the previous point; because the referee had already called the score, Newman was called for a fault that gave New Jersey the winning point, much to the frustration of the Brooklyn organization.

After a lengthy discussion and ultimate decision that the call would stand, Anna Leigh Waters/Noe Khlif took the court for the 5s and closed out the series with an 11-4 victory over Rachel Rohrabacher/Christian Alshon.

“It feels amazing, honestly,” Waters said of advancing to the finals for the third year in a row. “I feel like we’ve been in this position many times on the 5s. I know this is Fed’s first and we’ve got some more new blood with us, and I’m hoping that we can take all the feelings we’ve been experiencing all season long waiting for this moment and just execute later.”

The St. Louis Shock, who swept the Dallas Flash in the other semifinal series on Friday, await in the final.

The teams split their four regular season matches 2-2, with New Jersey winning their most recent meeting at MLP Orlando 3-1 to clinch the top seed in the playoffs.

Match 1 of the series will begin at 12:50pm ET on Pickleballtv.