With its 65-48 home win over Newark on Friday, the Hinckley-Big Rock boys basketball team assured itself a share of the Little Ten Conference regular-season title with the Norsemen.

But senior Luke Badal, who scored a game-high 18 points, said the Royals aren’t content with splitting the title for the second straight year. With a win at Earlville (1-24) on Wednesday, they can win an outright title for the first time since 2013.

“Last year we had a tie in conference, and it feels good to have a shared title again this year,” Badal said. “But we really want to go get it outright against Earlville and be undefeated in conference.”

The teams traded the lead five times in the first half, but the Royals (19-7 overall, 8-0 Little Ten) took control for good when Newark senior post Cody Kulbartz picked up his third foul with 5:22 left in the second quarter.

The Norsemen (15-14, 8-1) led 18-17, but the Royals outscored them 15-5 for the rest of the half, including scoring the last 10.

“To get five minutes with him off the floor ... it took two or three minutes for us to figure it out, but then we went on a 10-0 run there to finish out the half,” Royals coach Seth Sanderson said. “That gave us a good cushion in the second half there to work off of. So that was a huge part of it for us.”

Badal and Marshall Ledbetter were able to do most of the damage inside with Kulbartz and his shot-blocking ability no longer in the paint.

Ledbetter was the one who drew Kulbartz’s third foul and went to the line for his first points of the game. He finished the half with five and the game with 17.

“Marshall and I, we really like to establish the game in the paint with our finishing ability,” Badal said. “So getting him out of the game with foul trouble early, it just opened up a lot of room for us to do our work and get to our craft and get the job done.”

Up 31-22 at the break, the Royals still grew the lead with Kulbartz back to start the third. After Reggie Chapman opened the third with a bucket, Badal and Ledbetter combined to score 10 straight, all in the paint.

The Royals found most of their success during the run by drawing Kulbartz out of the paint to focus on a 3-point shooter like Gavin Pickert, who was 3 for 5 from long range. That left the path to the bucket a little easier for Badal or Ledbetter.

“We’re a different team defensively when we lose [Kulbartz],” Newark coach Kyle Anderson said. “We’ve been trying to preach to him all year how we have to get more disciplined on the ball. He saves a lot of stuff and he covers a lot of mistakes that we make, but he shouldn’t have to do that consistently.”

Kulbartz picked up his fourth foul with 2:28 left in the third, still played, but never fouled out. He finished with nine points, eight rebounds and three blocks. Chapman had 18 points and five steals.

Sanderson said Chapman and Kulbartz play 32 minutes a game, so sidelining the Norsemen’s big man was a big deal.

“They did a good job forcing some stuff out of our big guy early, kind of got in his head a little bit,” Anderson said. “That got us out of our rhythm.”

The Royals led by as much as 17 in the third, but Newark cut it to 55-46 with 5:21 left in the game. Ledbetter scored on back-to-back possessions to get the lead back up 13, and the Royals got enough stops the lead never shrank below 11 again.

Nolan Anderson scored 10 off the bench for Newark, which lost to H-BR 48-42 last week in the third-place game of the LTC Tournament.

Badal and Ledbetter each grabbed six rebounds. Senior Austin Roop had six points, three rebounds and three steals. Pickert finished with 14 points.

“This was such a great group of seniors, and I think it was so easy to be able to overlook them,” Sanderson said. “So for them to be able to put their graduating year up on a banner and have it up there forever, I’m so happy for that group.”