Like many other high schools in Florida, the Gainesville Hurricanes have seen their football schedule altered by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

But GHS seemed to find Monday Night Football to their liking.

Junior quarterback Nelson Tambling threw four touchdowns, all to senior wide receiver Calvin Thomas, and Gainesville cruised to a 36-8 win over Lake Weir (Ocala) on Monday night at Citizens Field.

Gainesville, which won one game combined in 2022 and 2023, improves to 5-3 this season.

This game was moved from last Thursday to Monday night as GHS lost a 35-34 heartbreaker at Leesburg on Oct. 14. Despite the tough loss and rearranged schedule, Gainesville coach Ian Scott likes how his team responded.

“This week was crazy because we played on Monday and then had UF homecoming on Friday,” Scott said. “We had people already planning on being a part of the parade, so we took Friday off and practiced Saturday morning and then had Sunday off.”

Gainesville got off to a bit of a slow start against Lake Weir. After an interception by senior Tony Perryman of Lake Weir senior quarterback Reche Shields at the GHS 40-yard line, Gainesville turned the ball over on downs. After a Lake Weir (4-4) punt, the Hurricanes put together an impressive balanced drive that was capped off by a 2-yard touchdown by senior running back Devin Johnson and a 6-0 GHS lead.

After a 3-yard Lake Weir punt that gave GHS the ball at their own 31-yard line, Tambling found Thomas on the next play with a 69-yard slant pass to the end zone and a 14-0 lead.

The two hooked up again on a 35-yard score right before halftime to extend the Gainesville lead to 22-0.

“I’ve been telling everybody that we have a quarterback who is playing his eighth high school football game,” Scott said. “Getting guys to play together that haven’t played a lot together takes some time. They [Lake Weir] gave us some opportunities. Our guys made plays and I’m proud of them.”

Tambling hooked up with Thomas twice more from 41 and 8 yards out in the first five minutes of the third quarter to get to a 36-0 advantage and a running clock.

Tambling was 8-of-11 passing for 239 yards with half of those completions going to Thomas for touchdowns. Thomas finished with an eye-popping 211 yards on six catches.

Gainesville is right back in action this Friday in a District 5-4A matchup at Vanguard (Ocala).

“They [GHS] competed their hearts out last Monday [against Leesburg] and came up a little bit short,” Scott said. “In practice all week they had great attitudes and to get this win is big and sets us up to go give our best shot in these last two games.”