For 27 minutes, the guys in purple stalked the home team Park City Miners.

The North Summit High School boys’ basketball team trailed 40-35 with five minutes to go in Tuesday evening’s 2011-12 season-opener after senior forward Braden Brown rose through a sea of Miners and tipped the ball into the hoop.

But that was as close as the Braves would get. The Miners responded with a 16-4 run to close out their Summit County challenger en route to a 56-39 victory.

“I thought we played really hard and then we started to gamble a little bit,” said North Summit head coach Jerry Pace. “(Park City is) just athletic enough that they were able to blow by us at the end. But I was proud of the effort. I thought they played hard.”

North Summit senior point guard Keegan McQueen had a stellar night, scoring a game-high 17 points and pestering the Park City defense throughout the evening.

“Tough kid,” said Park City head coach Caleb Fine. “When he drives and scores with his left, he’s very tricky. I would have liked to keep him out of the paint a little more, but he’s a good basketball player. You’ve got to give him credit. He made some tough shots.”

Pace echoed Fine’s comments.

“He’s a pretty good hand,” he said. “He’s even better when he plays within the framework. Sometimes he gets out of control a little bit, trying to do too much. But it’s just the first game.”

In the Braves’ 64-35 loss to Park City last year, the Miners lit up the scoreboard from behind the 3-point arc, something Pace and his team emphasized going into the game. That caused the team to be aggressive on defense and, ultimately, foul often, he said.

“Our pressure there tonight, I think, kept them away,” Pace said. “I think maybe the pressure just caused us to foul a lot because they were on the foul line a lot. That’s part of the game.”

North Summit lost just one regular to graduation last year and will be relying on McQueen, Brown, sharpshooter Makay Fristrup, and the likes of Jaxon Vernon, Joseph Seright and Isaac Atkinson as the season wears on.

“We’re going to play physical,” Pace said. “We’re going to get after people. I thought we did a pretty good job until late in the game, until fatigue began to set in. We’re not in the greatest shape at this point of the season.”

Asked what his team could take away from a rough-and-tumble loss to Park City, Pace said, “The effort. We didn’t die. We were in it all the way until the last few minutes or so. The score was no indication of how close the game was.”

“They battled us pretty good,” Fine said. “They’ll be just fine in 2A.”

The Braves will host the Ben Lomond Scots Wednesday, Nov. 30, in Coalville at 7 p.m.