As Chrisrlong stated you can also put the SELECT INTO in a PL/SQL block with an exception handler. You also need to handle the TOO_MANY_ROWS exception.

Why don't you want to use the cursors? With cursors you don't have to change your code if the data changes and there are no or many rows returned. And with cursors the code is more easy to read and maintain, then with the different exception handlers.