PAXTON — In identifying the various qualities that have led to the successes of the Paxton-Buckley-Loda varsity boys’ basketball team this season, one has been more significant than any other.

Toughness.

Whether it be Gauge Snider playing through a sprained ankle to lead PBL to a January victory at St. Thomas More, the players rallying around one another after four teammates quit in December, Dylan Kingren knowing his role (“There’s no reason for me to be dribbling the ball out there,” he said before a recent game) or the fiery Dakota Zenner blossoming into a team leader and calming influence, these Panthers have relied on a steely tenacity of the physical, mental and emotional variety in achieving the program’s fifth consecutive 20-win season.

At no time was that toughness on display more so than last Friday night in Paxton. In achieving a 47-29 win against Momence that clinched a share of the Sangamon Valley Conference title — the Panthers’ third straight and fourth in five years — with CPCI, PBL put the emotions of senior night aside, fought through a physical Redskins defense, endured a scoreless stretch of almost seven minutes and stayed composed upon watching a bloody scene after Snider suffered a laceration to the head from an errant elbow.

In many ways, the regular-season finale was a microcosm of how the Panthers (23-4, 6-1 in SVC) have gotten things done this year: the hard way.

“That’s just how you have to play sometimes,” said the do-everything Zenner, who had seven points, five rebounds and two steals in a familiar glue-the-team-together performance. “We just had to play tough.”

The senior was speaking directly to the Momence win, but he might as well have been summing up the whole season. Following record-setting 29-1 campaign in 2010-’11, PBL wasn’t expected to do as much. In a preseason SVC coaches’ poll, the Panthers were picked to finish fourth in the conference. On the local scene, at no point has there been close to the same buzz in town as a season ago, as shown by the attendance at home games not being quite the same.

And it wasn’t until after Christmas break — with a Leader Classic championship as positive evidence for coach Scot Vogel to draw on — that the Panthers truly discovered their own identity. As one former PBL player put it, it in large part revolved around realizing it was OK to be what they were (a harder-nosed bunch that had skills but would need to win in a more patient manner) instead of what they previously had been (the supremely talented 10-’11 squad).

“Every year you have teams with different identities,” Vogel said. “The one (this team) really bought into, is they knew they were going to have to play deliberate, they knew they were going to have to play very hard on defense and not take possessions off. And that’s where we’re a little bit different from last year’s team … We just can’t take a possession off.”

Though the defensive statistics are remarkably similar over the past two seasons — the ’10-’11 crew allowed 37.5 points per game and this version gives up 37.3 points — they tell little of how the games were won this time around. Often this year, PBL has had to grind out victories — 38-27 against Peotone, 26-22 at CPCI, 48-43 against Iroquois West, 38-35 at Clifton Central. It was rarely pretty with this group.

But the Panthers wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You got to be tough. You got to dig in. And they did that,” Vogel said. “They bought in to that. Credit them — that’s the stuff that makes you proud as a coach and why you get into coaching, I think. When you see that and it translates to success on the court, it’s a feeling that you can’t explain. It’s satisfying. They get it and they understand.”

When the regular season came to a close Friday, after Tanner Harris had again led the team in the scoring column with 20 points, and after Snider registered some of his finest play in a 13-point, eight-rebound performance before leaving early in the third quarter with the cut on his head, you could see everything Vogel spoke of in motion. Walking off the court, PBL kept the histrionics to a minimum.

Yes, the Panthers admitted there was a deep satisfaction in winning the SVC — “It means a lot to us, especially because I don’t think anyone really thought we could do it,” said Zenner — but they kept their tough-guy face on. After all, the team will need it this week with the postseason upon it and without (for a while) Snider, who is likely out until Friday, if PBL makes it that far, as he continues to recover after getting eight staples in his head.

Second-seeded PBL opened the Class 2A Tuscola Regional against Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley on Tuesday (it ended after the Record’s deadline), and should the seeds hold up, PBL would get a Wednesday semifinal matchup against St. Thomas More and a Friday shot against Unity in the title game.

“When we trust each other and play well, that’s how it works for us,” Kingren said of the key in postseason play. “We just have trust in each other and know that everyone can do the right thing.”

“We know we’re going to have to play tough in regionals to win,” added Zenner. “That’s the main goal. Now we have to start over again and play tough.”

Sure sounds like a familiar refrain.

Class 2A boys' basketball Tuscola Regional

Mon., Feb. 20
Game 1: (4) Monticello 54, (5) Prairie Central 49

Tue., Feb. 21
Game 2 at 6 p.m.: (2) PBL vs. (7) GCMS
Game 3 at 8:10 p.m.: (3) St. Thomas More vs. (6) Tuscola

Wed., Feb. 22
Game 4 at 6 p.m.: (1) Tolono Unity vs. Monticello
Game 5 at 8:10 p.m.: Winner Game 2 vs. Winner Game 3

Fri., Feb. 24
Game 6 at 7:30 p.m.: Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5