Staff photo / Brian Yauger. Badger’s Preston Geracitano goes up for a layup against a McDonald defender on Friday night.

VERNON — Led by a 32-point outing by senior Duncan Moy, the Badger Braves’ offense exploded in a 85-55 drubbing of McDonald on Friday.

“We’re playing pretty well right now and shooting the crap out of the ball. I don’t know how many misses Duncan had tonight but it didn’t feel like many,” Braves coach Josh Upshire said. “He was shooting the ball pretty well today. Preston (Geracitano) was actually off today. I don’t think he took many shots, but other guys stepped up and it was nice to be able to play some more depth than we had in the beginning of the season. The guys were stepping up and playing their roles.”

Badger’s offense was free-flowing on Friday, ripe with highlight reel passes and Moy laying down multiple dunks.

With the roster the Braves (6-1) have, employing a free-flowing style is easy.

“We didn’t run one set tonight,” Upshire said. “It was just a ‘get the ball and go’ type of game tonight. And we could do that. With Duncan and Preston running the show, we can do that. Teams press us, (we) get the ball up the floor and finish. I’m not the guy that wants to slow things down.”

It’s been the case the whole season, but Badger had a bit of a slow start early. They maintained a lead for most of the contest, but were never able to truly pull away in the first half.

In the waning minutes before halftime, McDonald went on a run that erased a sizable lead and cut it to within two scores. But almost instantly, the Braves stifled that run and went into the break up 10.

“(Stopping that run) was key for us,” Upshire said. “They cut it to I think four or five, and then we made that nice run there at the end to get up 10 to start the second half. We created a little bit more pressure in the second half with some traps and things like that. A lot of our defense created offense tonight and that’s a difference maker for us.”

The loss drops the Blue Devils to 3-3 on the season.

On the McDonald side of things, Drew Zajack led with 17 points, while Chris Ragazzine added 15.

“We’ve got to find a way just to get better everywhere,” Blue Devils coach James Franceschelli said. “We turned the ball over a lot tonight and little things. To be able to compete with the better teams in the area, we have got to focus on ourselves and get better every day.

“We’re in a little bit of a gauntlet here and at 3-3 with a young team, we could go one way or another here. We’ve got to figure out if we want it to go the right way. That’s our plan in the next couple of days before we play again, is getting better ourselves.”

Both teams’ next contest are against Girard. The Braves have a week off for the holiday before traveling to Girard on Friday, while McDonald hosts the Indians on Tuesday.

With a brutal schedule ahead that includes Girard, Kennedy, and Bristol, those slow starts need to disappear for the Braves quickly.

“We have got to start a little quicker. We just had too many turnovers. I think we had between 11 and 16 in the first half, and that’s way too many for what we want to do,” Upshire said. “Our M.O. still has been not very good on the defensive end. We played better in the second half, but we still have to get better. We started running the trap a little bit more there in the second half and created a little bit more offense.

“It’s fun. We can fly around and do those things and have some highlights there with Duncan.”

byauger@tribtoday.com