RAMONA -- Ramona High baseball coach Dean Welch was in an understandably jovial mood Wednesday afternoon.

Bulldogs starter James Meador threw a complete-game two hitter as Ramona played flawless defense and banged out 13 hits in an 12-0 home win over Escondido.

"Well," Welch said, "it couldn't have gone much better than that."

The same can be said for the early portion of Ramona's Valley League season. The Bulldogs (15-5, 6-0) have dominated local competition and sit alone in first place with eight games to play.

"We're peaking at the right time," Welch said. "Our goal was to experiment and figure out the makeup of our team early on in order to be ready for league play. I think we jelled as a team during that time, and now we're starting to play some good baseball. The guys are playing with confidence. They're starting to believe in themselves."

That confidence swells exponentially when Meador is on the mound.

The senior was virtually unhittable against the Cougars (8-11, 2-5), recording 13 strikeouts for his fifth victory of the season.

"When James is on his game, we can all relax a little bit," said center fielder Drew Muren, who went 3-for-4 with a triple and three RBIs. "He's a real competitor, and we all feed off of him. … We're playing well right now and we're getting more confident with every win."

Wednesday's game was in doubt until the fifth inning. That's when the Bulldogs sent 13 men to the plate, scored eight runs on as many hits and established a 10-0 advantage.

Escondido starter Daniel Massinburge was in control through four innings, but Ramona's bats got hot after that. Every Bulldogs starter got a hit, and Ramona got RBIs from eight different hitters.

"Sometimes, you just have to tip your hat," Escondido coach Steve Afenir said. "We played them tough there for a while, but in the later innings they proved why they're the class of the Valley League. They capitalized on their scoring opportunities and got a great performance out of their ace.

"Ramona's playing some good baseball. They're a tough team to beat these days."

Contact staff writer Scott Bair at (760) 739-6642 or sbair@nctimes.com.