Danny Snyder wasn’t told to be the ball on Tuesday night, but to be aggressive with it.

The Glenbard East senior received his coach’s message loud and clear and then made it happen, scoring 11 points in the decisive fourth quarter of the Rams’ 86-78 win over Yorkville Christian at The Canyon in Yorkville.

Snyder finished with 18 points, with all but two in the second half. He was one of four Rams in double figures.

“I kind of got off to a slow start, but you know, coaches are always preaching to be aggressive,” he said. “And once I got that drive, I just kept going.”

That drive with 7:09 left in the fourth quarter gave the Rams (21-2) the lead back at 61-60 during a back-and-forth battle against the Mustangs (13-8).

“He’s so unselfish, we’ve always got to tell him to be aggressive,” Rams coach Eric Kelly said. “He’s one of best shooters in the area. Next to (senior teammate) Michale Nee, I don’t know a better shooter. And so we want guys like him to get up shots. We always say we want him to get 15 to 20 shots. So in the second half he had his opportunity. He opened up with a drive and seeing the ball go through the basket, he got a couple threes and knocked them down, and that was good to see. Like I said, he’s one of the best shooters and players in the area.”

With 4:50 left, Snyder drained a 3 to extend Glenbard East’s lead to 70-66.

His three-point play on a baseline drive increased it to 73-68 with 2:54 to play.

“We had a high ball screen and I kept being aggressive on those,” Snyder said. “Coaches kept saying that, so just tried to get downhill hill. It was a good team effort. Got off to a bit of a slow start but we were able to pick it up throughout the game.”

Yorkville Christian’s Jayden Riley, who led all players with 29 points, got a couple of them on free throws to get the Mustangs to within 73-70 with 2:44 remaining, but they wouldn’t get any closer.

“I’d say we did really good, actually,” Riley said. “We’re in a little slump right now. We’ve been going up and down. We were playing really good at the beginning of the season and then hit a slump and weren’t playing that good, and we weren’t playing together, and in practice yesterday I think nobody thought we’d be prepared for today, and we came out prepared.”

Riley was 10 of 10 from the free-throw line. Tray Alford scored 19 points, and fellow junior James Maxwell scored 11 for the Mustangs.

“Coach (Aaron Sovern) had everything on the scouting report,” Riley said. “It was impressive because he told us everything they were going to do. ... Michale Nee hit two tough shots.”

Jacob Marynowski got an uncontested lay-up on a near turnover and then made two free throws to push the lead to 77-70.

Snyder’s 3 with 1:28 left gave the Rams their first double digit lead at 80-70.

Nee, who drained five 3s, led the senior-laden Rams with 22 points. Keenan House had 19 points, Marynowski scored 17 points and Sam Walton had eight points and 13 rebounds.

“(Nee) is one the best shooters not just in the state, he’s one of the best in the country, and he proved that this summer playing one of the toughest AAU circuits, the Adidas circuit,” Kelly said. “He’s proved it time and time again. He’s been playing varsity basketball for four years. He’s a high IQ guy and he’s unselfish. He could take another five to 10 shots, but he’s unselfish and wants to get other guys involved.

“He doesn’t have to score 30 points for us to win because we have five guys who can score double figures. He’s around 20 now and on quite a roll. I think he has 20 in his last seven out of eight games. It’s good to see, and we want to keep it going until the middle of March.”

Glenbard East led 42-40 at half and trailed 60-59 entering the fourth quarter.

“The reason we wanted to play this game and come out here is because they have one of the best guards (Riley) in the area, a Division-I kid,” Kelly said. “And when we go to the playoffs and where we want to go with regionals, sectionals ... teams that go far are going to have really good guards. We wanted to be able to experience this, to go against someone of that caliber, so we have something to call upon.”