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BRISTOL — The Johnston High School boys’ basketball team snapped out of a mini funk in the second half, dominated the backboards and pulled away from host Mt. Hope for a 62-49 victory Thursday night.

The 8-3 Panthers, losers of two of their previous three games, seemed ripe for an upset by the 3-8 Huskies based on their first-half play. But Johnston broke a halftime tie with the first hoop of the second half and had the lead up to 14 points shortly afterward en route to the win.

“They needed this. We’ve been struggling,” said Johnston coach Steve DeMeo. “I think they were pressing at the beginning because the losses were starting to affect their confidence.”

The Huskies couldn’t take advantage of Johnston’s 11-for-39 (28 percent) field-goal shooting in the opening half mostly because they were outrebounded 28-15 during that span and 54-25 overall.

Mt. Hope went ahead 24-17 when Pat Guthlein put back his own miss with about four minutes to play. But the Huskies missed their next seven shots and turned over the ball three times in going scoreless the rest of the half. Johnston, despite six misses of its own, managed to draw even at 24 by the intermission.

“We were fortunate to keep the game close in the first half,” said Mt. Hope coach Mike Topazio. We really didn’t play well. The first half (Johnston) missed a ton of shots. But we couldn’t do anything about it.”

That’s because the Panthers continuously pounded the glass getting second, third and sometimes, fourth chances. Johnston scored six points off putbacks, 12 points off layups and hit two threes in the opening half. They also missed 28 shots.

“We like to run,” DeMeo said. “We’re not used to scoring 24 points in a half. If we hit our bunnies, we could have had 36 to 40 points in the half. I think we were anxious.”

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Johnston’s Evan Hopson had six points and 11 rebounds at the break and finished with a game-high 19 points and a game-high 17 rebounds. Teammate Paul Burrows scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds, Shykeel Colon had eight points and nine boards and Steve Simone had eight points and eight caroms.

“They’re athletic. That’s what I told our kids before the game,” Topazio said. “Then they came out in the second half on fire.”

The Panthers hit seven of their first 10 second-half shots in scoring 16 points in a little over four minutes. Again, with the exception of a three-pointer, the rest of the points came from under the hoop. Mt. Hope’s Ben Francis, who had team-best totals of 16 points and 11 rebounds, scored all seven Mt. Hope points during the Panthers’ streak to keep the Huskies within striking distance.

Hopson’s putback pushed Johnston’s lead to 13 with nine minutes left. Despite going 4-for-5 from the floor over the next three minutes, getting a three from Matt Scott and baskets from Guthlein, Kyle Valenzuela and Francis, the Huskies still found themselves down by a dozen.

But Mt. Hope went just 3-for-10 from the floor the rest of the way as the Johnston lead three times peaked at 15. The Panthers again asserted themselves inside in the second half in getting 10 points off putbacks and 18 points off layups.

“We couldn’t keep up with them on the boards,” said Topazio. “I think the important thing in the game was the size difference. We just couldn’t match it.

“It’s tough when you play a team like that. They can come down and get second and third shots and you’re working your (butt) off just to get a good 15-footer. It’s tough.”

The Huskies did manage to get inside for some easy baskets when they quickly worked the ball around the perimeter. The good ball movement eventually enabled one of their guards to find an open lane to take the ball to the basket and either put the shot up or kick it back outside for an open look. It just didn’t happen as often as Mt. Hope would have liked.

“They play that 1-3-1 and they spread it wide,” Topazio said. “We didn’t get a lot of the penetration we were looking for. Kyle did some penetrating. Other than that, we seemed to live with the 15,- 20-footer.”

Guthlein ended with 10 points, Valenzuela had eight and Scott finished with seven for Mt. Hope. The Huskies finished 20-for-57 (35 percent) from the floor, 4-for-14 (29 percent) from three and 5-for-9 (55 percent) from the free throw line. Mt. Hope had 15 turnovers compared to 24 for Johnston.

Johnston turned its woeful first-half shooting percentage around with a 16-for-30 performance from the field in the latter half for an overall 27-for-69 (39 percent) effort. The Panthers were 5-for-19 (26 percent) from beyond the arc and 3-for-8 (38 percent) from the charity stripe.

The Huskies don’t play again until Tuesday, Jan. 31 when they travel to play at 6-3 North Smithfield, at 7 p.m.