Take a look at XML::Simple. It does exactly what you want:

use XML::Simple;

my $options = XMLin ('teams.badDB') if -e 'teams.badDB';

# do stuff with $options
$options->{'time'} = 15 * 60 if ! exists $options->{'time'};
$options->{'width'} = 200 if ! exists $options->{'width'};
# ...

open outFile, '>', 'teams.badDB';
print outFile XMLout ($options);
close outFile;
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