The lightweight sweep will select the lightweight men's four boat. Twelve men will compete for the four slots. The heavyweight camp boat selections will be an eight, a four and likely a four with coxswain. With two coxswains attending the camp, 18 rowers will be competing for 12 to 16 spots.
"It's really awe-inspiring," rower Max Kinne '15 said. "The fact that Brendon and Josh got this shows their skill as rowers, as well as the strength of Dartmouth rowing and coaching."
Konieczny said the potential spot on the U-23 national team will benefit his rowing goals.
"I think my odds are pretty good," he said. "In terms of raw power, I'm ahead of most people ion the camp. It just comes down to how I row. My goal is the Olympics in 2016. Part of the reason I wanted to do the four camp was to see whether I wanted to do the four or the double in the Olympics. The double has been my focus for the last couple of years, but if the four goes well, I might consider that."
While the odds are in Stoner's favor, he is not taking anything for granted.
"I'm going to go out there and do my best and never take a stroke off," he said. "Hopefully it'll work out for me."
This is the first selection for Stoner and the third for Konieczny, though it is his first time attending.
"I've been invited the past couple of years, but wasn't able to go," he said. "I'm excited to take the opportunity and see what I can do on the international stage."
Konieczny has earned honors as a two-time all-Ivy selection and was a member of the first varsity eight boat that earned silver at the 2012 IRA National Championship.
Stoner, on the other hand, almost saw his rowing career cut short due to a car accident before his freshman year of college that kept him out of the boat for six months.
Stoner had total disk replacement surgery in February of his freshman year and was back on the water in late May.
"Last year and this summer and fall, I put in a ton of meters and worked as hard as my body would allow," the junior said. "I guess it paid off."
Konieczny and Stoner are the only representatives of Dartmouth on either team. Konieczny follows a line of Dartmouth lightweights to achieve success at the international level.
"The past few years, we've had a couple '12s on the national team and an '08 in the Olympics," he said. "It doesn't happen that often for Dartmouth that we get national team people, so I'm just glad to be carrying on the tradition."
Stoner said that he could not remember the last Dartmouth heavyweight to make the U.S. national team.
"It's a humbling opportunity," he said. "I really hope I can represent the program well. If I actually end up making the team, Dartmouth will get its name into the ring even more and it can help with recruiting and things like that. It's humbling to be put into the same group with these other great rowers."
Both camps are loaded with Ivy League rowers. The lightweight sweep consists of eight of 12 invitees coming from the Ancient Eight, and the heavyweight camp is half Ivy, reflecting the power balance of their respective weight classes. Konieczny said that on a national scale, talent is "skewed" toward the Ivy League, though other programs such as the University of Washington and Northeastern University are beginning to assert themselves.
"We haven't been one of the strongest programs in the last decade, but Brendon's nomination puts us in a good light," Kinne said. "The makeup of the invites shows that [Washington] is and will continue to be the dominant power in collegiate rowing. That we got nominated shows that we're working to get there ourselves."
