BRUNSWICK — Coach Sam Farrell doesn’t believe in bad wins.

He does believe in slugfests, however, and his Brunswick’s girls’ basketball team escaped one with a 34-25 win over Freeport on Monday night.

“We’re developing a lot,” Brunswick forward Lexi Morin said. “Especially from the very beginning of preseason till now, it looks better. I mean, we have a different team this year, and we came out not knowing what were we gonna have. I think we’re still working into what we can get to.”

Added Brunswick guard Kyra Fortier: “I think our chemistry might have been a little bit off tonight being one of the first games. Like what she said, we’re trying to work together. We’re trying to learn how to do that. So, yeah, we’ll learn how to do that as we move on.”

Morin notched a double-double, scoring 17 points, corralling 10 boards, and adding four steals and four assists. Fortier added seven points, six rebounds and four steals.

The Dragons (2-0) started the game on an 8-0 run and kept the Falcons (0-2) scoreless for the first 5:38 of the game with an aggressive full-court press. Brunswick struggled from 3-point range, and outside of Morin, didn’t try to test defenders down low, allowing Freeport to stay within reach from the free-throw line and go on a 9-2 run of its own. By halftime, Brunswick led 18-13.

“They’re big,” Farrell said of Freeport. “So sometimes, players look and go, ‘Oh, I can’t get in on her because she’s so big.’ They were packing it in. It’s practice and belief, and we’ll watch film. Once the kids believe, we’ll be good (at attacking the rim.)”

Freeport began to knock down a few mid-range baskets after the break, but the Brunswick defense was unrelenting. The Dragons went into the fourth quarter with a 28-19 lead.

“Our unforced turnovers are a huge problem, and all we can do is keep coming up with new drills in practice to reduce the number of turnovers,” Freeport Coach Joel Rogers said. “We work on ball handling every day. Every player, every day, and it’s the hottest 12 minutes of practice, is ball handling. And we’re not getting anything out of it. We’re a really good defensive rebounding team…and we get nothing out of transition because we’re just not making good decisions yet.”

Senior Maddie Cormier led the Falcons with nine points and 15 rebounds. Sophomore Abby Giroux contributed seven points and four rebounds. Junior Emily Groves added support down low with five rebounds, three blocks and two steals.

Both teams committed more fouls (Brunswick 16, Freeport 13) than made field goals (Brunswick 12, Freeport 9).

“We don’t want to get in foul trouble,” Farrell said. “But, I mean, I can’t get mad when it seemed like we outworked them, out-hustled them and got balls. Kyra’s steal late to ice it, I mean, those are plays. So you take the positive and then we work on what we’re not good at.”