The result, a 25-12, 25-14 loss to Naperville North, didn’t matter.

The DeKalb boys volleyball played its first home match on Tuesday, a few days after the first matches in program history at a tournament in Streamwood. The program is competing at the freshman and junior varsity levels only this year, with a varsity squad planned for next year.

“Obviously it was not the result we wanted,” said senior Juan Lopez, who had three of the team’s five kills. “But hey, we still came out here and had fun. We’re here to have fun. We want to win too, but at the end of the day we’re a first-year program and having fun with our teammates is the most important part.”

The 6-foot-4 Lopez is one of seven seniors on the JV roster for the Barbs and one of three senior starters alongside 6-2 Gregory Kubitz and 5-6 Tyler Brackemyer.

Lopez, who played football his first three years in DeKalb, said there’s a good chemistry on the team and he wishes he got more than one year with the other players.

“It really sucks because I feel like for my first year, I’m really having an amazing year,” Lopez said. “I’m getting some pretty good plays in. But at the end of the day I’m still going to come back to watch them play in the future. We have an amazing young team, our freshman team is amazing and by the time they get to senior year, I feel like everybody else needs to watch out for them because they’re coming.”

Coach Keith Foster, also coach of the girls program, said when he was brought to the school from Genoa-Kingston two years ago, starting a boys program was a goal of athletic director Peter Goff and the district.

Foster ran a brief two-week intramural season last season before the JV-only campaign this year.

Foster said he’s balancing the present and the future. The JV team has no freshmen on it. Playing time is divvied up as in any other sport, whereas practices are more for building toward the future.

“The kids are earning playing time through understanding IQ volleyball, the nuances in it,” Foster said. “Those are the kids that are getting opportunities to play. You have to keep people safe out there on the court, so we want people to know where they are and be assignment correct.”

Foster said the focus this season isn’t on specific results. He said each match has 50 points, with each point like a mini-game. The focus is more on how the competition plays out each point than about a 25-14 or 25-12 loss.

And that message has landed well, he said. That stems from a lot of players not having any high school athletic activities, not just volleyball.

“Just getting them involved in a situation where there’s pressure and fans and support, that’s really exciting in and of itself,” Foster said. “And it’s really landing because there are a lot of fresh slates, where everything that I am teaching is all they know for some of them. So I think it’s hitting them pretty hard and they’re doing a really good job of focusing on next point.”

The Barbs went 1-4 at Streamwood, picking up the program’s first victory against Ridgewood.

Grady Fowler led the Barbs with five digs. Sophomore Carlos Alba Salazar was one of three Barbs with three digs.

Alba Salazar said playing in front of the home crowd on Tuesday wasn’t exactly the same as playing five matches in a day an hour away from home.

“It was such a different experience,” Alba Salazar said. “It was really nerve-wracking because there were a lot of people from our school here to watch us play, so I was really nervous. But it was really fun overall.”

Alba Salazar said it’s been a fun experience so far in the few months he’s been involved with the team. He said everyone is very passionate about the sport, and that’s one of the biggest strengths of the team.

The 5-7 Alba Salazar played soccer through a club team when he was younger, but this is his first experience at a sport through the high school. He said he’s really enjoying volleyball.

“I would hope to go pro,” Alba Salazar said, starting to laugh, “but I don’t think I’m tall enough for that.”