How Louisville's Tanner Shiver plans to get married during the MCWS - ESPN

OMAHA, Neb. — The DJ is booked, and the wedding cakes — one white, one chocolate — are about to be baked. Two hundred and fifty people are ready to fill St. Michael Catholic Church near Louisville, Kentucky, late Friday afternoon for the wedding of Katelyn Farmer and Tanner Shiver.

All that is missing is the groom.

Shiver is a utility player for the Louisville Cardinals, who are playing in the Men's College World Series. They face Oregon State on Tuesday at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha. The Cardinals' hope is to keep staving off elimination and advance to the finals, which start Saturday.

Friday is an off day at the MCWS, and if everything goes right for Louisville and Shiver, he'll be making the most of it. Shiver's plan is to fly home, get hitched and make it back for the best-of-three championship round. He would have to reschedule their honeymoon, which is booked to a secret destination.

If this sounds unbelievable, here's the kicker — Farmer is fine with all of this.

She calmly sat in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Omaha on Monday afternoon, working remotely on her laptop as Shiver got ready to step on a bus with his team, which was headed to a local children's hospital.

Farmer is an athlete herself, a former midfielder on the Tennessee Tech women's soccer team. So she gets it. In Shiver's Louisville baseball bio, he lists Farmer as his favorite athlete, calling her a «Tennessee Tech women's soccer legend.»

They met in the cafeteria at Tennessee Tech as freshman and were friends at first, but that didn't last long.

«She has the prettiest blue eyes you're ever going to see,» he said. «I had a crush on her the whole time, but I didn't tell her.»

Shiver is Farmer's first boyfriend.

«I'm just a girl who