SCARBOROUGH – Marcia Wood has been doing some head-scratching lately.

Some of it ended Thursday as her Scarborough girls’ lacrosse team beat Gorham, 17-5.

With virtually all her players back from a team that won the Class A title a year ago, Wood figured she would enjoy a smooth road to the postseason.

But the past week has been a bumpy one for the veteran Scarborough coach, who has watched her team struggle.

“We’ve had a bunch of close games,” said Wood. “I wasn’t so much angry about that or disappointed. I just didn’t think we were playing to our full potential. Really, we’re only missing two or three people from last year and all of my top scorers are back, so I kind of came into the season thinking it should be how we ended last year.”

So she enjoyed seeing a return to form and fundamentals against Gorham.

The win was Scarborough’s second straight after seeing an 18-game winning streak end Saturday in a home loss to Cape Elizabeth. The Red Storm (8-1) sandwiched one-goal victories against Cheverus and Thornton Academy around the loss.

“For some reason we’ve had those games that nothing goes our way,” Wood said. “It was definitely scary because it’s not something I was used to seeing my team do. It kind of makes you wonder every game which team is going to be out there. This was my team today. This is what they need to continue to do.”

Scarborough controlled the ball for virtually all of the opening period to build a 5-0 lead.

After Gorham (4-5) finally scored, the Red Storm answered with four of the next five goals to lead 9-2 at the break.

“They’ve got some really good shooters on their team,” said Gorham Coach Mary Vaughan. “They’ve got a lot of speed and made some really quick passes that caught us off-guard.”

The Rams made their only serious charge early in the second half. A pair of free-possession saves by Gorham goalie Maddy Hamblen led to three straight goals that made it 10-5.

Scarborough then called a timeout.

“Coach had us refocus on just the fundamentals of the game because that’s what we’ve been struggling with all season,” said Maggie Smith, who had three goals and two assists for Scarborough. “We just sharpened up our passes and shooting, and played how we needed to play.”

The Red Storm then quickly put the game away, scoring four times in a span of just over four minutes to make it 14-5.

Laura Przybylowicz and Mary Scott also scored three times each for the Red Storm, and Kesley Howard had two goals. Jess Meader, Maiti Kent, Gabby Fitser, Ainsley Jamieson, Cassidy Regan and Kaitlin Prince also scored.

Kali St. Germain and Katie Tucker scored twice each for the Rams, who suffered their fourth straight loss. Lindsey Smith had the other goal.