Talk about a double play.
A Montana high school softball player unexpectedly came face to face with her long-lost sister during a tournament after a teammate noticed the striking resemblance between the athletes on opposing teams.
Samantha Rensvold, 19, was competing at a softball tournament in Belgrade, Montana, last August when one of her teammates spotted Kyann Dean, 18, playing for the other team.
Rensvold, who was adopted, had always known she had a younger biological sister. But because the adoption was closed, she had no idea where her sister lived or what she looked like.
“I hadn’t seen her up close yet when my teammate started pointing her out,” Rensvold told People on Sept. 30.
“I thought, ‘There’s no way this is happening to me right now,’” she recalled.
Rensvold chose not to approach Dean immediately because she couldn’t be sure they were related. After she told her mother about the resemblance, however, they checked the tournament roster and found Dean’s name.
“My mom knew that was the name my birth mother had given her,” Rensvold said. “She told me, ‘That has to be your sister. This can’t be a coincidence.’”
Rensvold’s mother then contacted Dean’s family at the tournament. The families compared details about the girls’ biological mother and the hospital where both children were born—and the information matched.
When the sisters finally met on the softball field, they shook hands in stunned disbelief before breaking into laughter.
“There’s a girl on my all-state team who looks exactly like you,” Rensvold’s teammate said in a clip obtained by Inside Edition on Tuesday.
“We were completely freaking out and crying,” Rensvold’s mother told the outlet. The emotional reunion drew comparisons to the 1998 film “The Parent Trap,” starring Lindsay Lohan.
In the movie, Lohan portrays twin sisters who meet by chance at a summer camp and realize they are nearly identical.
Although Rensvold and Dean were thrilled to discover each other, Rensvold said the reality of the moment took time to sink in.
“You don’t really know how to feel because you’ve spent your whole life waiting for this moment,” she told People.
The sisters, who have not undergone DNA testing, were adopted as babies by separate families in Great Falls, Montana.
Rensvold was raised in Polson, in northwestern Montana, while Dean grew up about 400 miles away in Worden.
Rensvold said their biological parents were 19 and 17 years old when she was born.
“I’ve always assumed they were too young and hoped to give me a life they felt they couldn’t provide,” she said. “What I don’t understand is why they later had two more children and gave both of them up for adoption as well.”
Under Montana law, adoption records and proceedings are confidential and automatically sealed. They can be opened or released only through a specific court order, according to the Adoptee Rights Law Center.
Rensvold and Dean have since discovered several similarities beyond their appearance. Both played volleyball in high school, both wore No. 6 and both played the same position.
They also have the same “little giggle,” Rensvold said.
Rensvold now attends Spokane College in Washington state, where she appeared in 26 softball games and started 13, recording 11 wins and five losses during her freshman year.
Dean attends college in North Dakota and recently visited Rensvold and her family at Spokane.
“When I would talk to people about my situation with my biological family, I’d always have to explain ‘I have a sister,’” Rensvold said.
“But now it’s so nice to be able to put a face to her and to meet her, hang out with her. It doesn’t leave any doubt or wonder in my mind,” she added.
