WARSAW | Munster's school history-making season was a battle to the very end.

When Kyle Ritz notched his 10th point on a 3-pointer with a tenth of a second remaining on the clock, it was enough to pull the Mustangs within three points of Fort Wayne Snider, but not enough to take them over the top. Munster lost Saturday's Class 4A Northern Semistate 63-60 in front of a near-capacity crowd at Warsaw High School.

"Most teams would have given up a long time ago," senior Krste Ruiz said. "We're not that kind of team. We've come so far and we didn't come this far to just give up in the last five seconds, two seconds of the game. We told ourselves that we were going to try our very hardest until that buzzer went off and, win or lose, we were going to leave it all out there on the court."

Snider's four-point halftime lead grew to 12 in the fourth quarter before Ruiz sparked an 11-2 run to pull the 'Stangs within three with 2:09 remaining.

"We knew we had to do something to get back in that game," senior Alex McGuire said. "People stepped it up so we could get back into it."

"That is a weakness of ours," Snider coach Ray Sims said. "We've done that a few times this year. We're up 11 with a minute to go and we think the game's over. ... Munster made a great run. We've got to finish. We'll talk about that on Tuesday."

Snider's last 10 points came from the free-throw line as the Panthers went 23-of-33 from the stripe. Munster shot 36.8 percent from behind the arc (7-of-19), including two 3s in the last 6.5 seconds of the game.

"The key was to not give up," Munster coach Mike Hackett said. "The key was to keep fighting and scratching until there was nothing but zeroes on that clock."

Snider's Jonathan Sims had 17 points, including three 3s, to lead all scorers. Panthers senior Carl Miller scored 12 of his 14 points behind four 3s, and Reggie Hearn added 12 points, six from the free-throw line. Snider, ranked No. 23 in the country in the latest USA Today poll, will play national No. 3 Bloomington South for the state title next Saturday in Conseco Fieldhouse.

The Mustangs' largest lead was 10-6 with 3:28 remaining in the first quarter. They retied the game at 15 in the first 15 seconds of the second quarter.

When Miller hit two 3s to turn the Panthers' lead into 21-17, Munster was playing catch-up.

"We really felt that we were going to come back," Ruiz said. "Maybe one more basket, one more stop and we'd have been there."