Valparaiso University men’s tennis doubles players Jeffrey Schorsch (Perrysburg, Ohio / Perrysburg) and Charlie Emhardt (Carmel, Ind. / Carmel) will play for the USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate title on Sunday.

Schorsch and Emhardt stayed unbeaten in the tournament and continued their unprecedented run by dispatching Columbia brother duo Victor and Richard Pham on Saturday at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.

The Valpo pair pulled out the first set 7-6 (10-8), then clinched a spot in the championship match with a 6-3 win in Set 2.  

The Crusaders received a USTA wild card berth in the event, and have proved they belong in the field every step of the way. Now, only one win separates them from a national indoor title. Schorsch and Emhardt are the third team from a non-Power 5 conference to make the men’s doubles final in the last 10 years.

With a win on Sunday, they would become the first Horizon League representatives to ever win the event. In order to clear that final hurdle, they will have to get through Wake Forest’s Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim, who won a three-set thriller over Michigan’s Jathan Malik and Kevin Wong 3-6, 7-5, 10-4 in Saturday’s semifinal.

Had Malik and Wong won, it would have set up a rematch of the ITA Midwest Regional final, in which Malik and Wong eked out a compelling win to nab the automatic qualifying spot. Instead, the Crusaders will deal with the Wake Forest duo, which is the No. 2 seed in the event and the No. 3 team in the nation in the most recent Oracle ITA Division-I Men’s National Doubles Rankings.

Seraphin and Mansouri were doubles all-Americans a year ago. Seraphim also had 35 singles wins to tie for third in single-season program history, while Mansouri was all-ACC first team and a singles All-American by virtue of his 33-11 record and 17 wins against ranked opponents.

Live stats of Sunday’s championship match will be available on ValpoAthletics.com.