Salesian’s Davon Moreland, a former boxer, loves flooring quarterbacks

From age 12 to 15, Davon Moreland was a boxer. Then he tried football last season at Los Angeles Salesian High, and he discovered he had a knack for sacking quarterbacks.

“I refuse to get blocked,” he said.

After recording 21 sacks as a junior playing end, Moreland can’t wait to try to double his totals this season.

“There isn’t anybody who’s going to put their hand in my chest,” he said.

At 6 feet 3 and 225 pounds, Moreland relies on his ability to never stop pursuing the player holding the football.

“From the start of the play to the finish, he’s going 100 mph,” Coach Roddy Hiatt said.

When a teammate made an interception, Hiatt recalls that Moreland “took out three guys in one play, and that’s getting out in front of the interception and just using his motor.”

Moreland was attending Hawthorne High when he transferred to Salesian and joined the football team. Before that, he was a middleweight boxer who had a 4-1 record.

“I like football more than boxing now because it’s a team sport,” he said. “When you box, it’s a one-on-one thing. Everything is on you.”

His football success helped him to make a commitment to Southern Methodist during the summer and look forward to the future.

“I wasn’t thinking about college,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about college.”

Boxing has helped with his hand work. Those strong, quick, active hands can make it difficult for an offensive tackle to block him.

“Our ends are stand-up defensive ends, and he has to use his hands quite a bit taking on offensive tackles and running backs, and he does very good at swimming and hand punching to the tackles and the running backs,” Hiatt said.

Moreland projects as a linebacker in college, so he’s trying to learn about covering receivers and reading defenses.

With teams passing more and more, it’s a good time to be a defensive lineman because the sack opportunities keep climbing.

Besides Moreland, there are lots of returning players hoping to build up their sack totals from last season, including Los Angeles Dorsey end Jeremiah Allison, who had 20 sacks; Gardena Serra end Jason Gibson, who had 15; and Lakewood tackle Todd Barr, who had 15.

What teams are beginning to do is to move all over the field players who are big sack people to create mismatches and put them in position to be successful.

Moreland is looking forward to his senior season.

“I just like to get after the ball,” he said. “Whomever I see with the ball, I’m going to try to get him. They’re not going to get away.”

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

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