Cal needed something, anything to help it break out of its difficult stretch. Saturday, the Bears turned to their leading scorer who stepped up with his best performance yet this year.

Andrej Stojakovic scored a career-high 31 points to help Cal come back to beat Northwestern State, 84-66, and snap a three-game losing streak. Stojakovic bested his previous high-scoring performance of 26 points against Missouri with an efficient showing against the Demons Saturday at Haas Pavilion.

For a portion of Saturday's game, Cal needed every bit of it, too.

The Bears (7-4) found themselves down by 6 points with 9:05 to play in the first half Saturday following a 7-0 run by the Demons (4-6). That's when the Cal sophomore spearheaded a 14-4 run that helped the Bears gain control.

Stojakovic accounted for 9 points during that run to eventually help Cal take a 36-33 lead into the locker room. It was just enough breathing room for the Bears to begin to create separation once the second half opened up.

Joshua Ola-Joseph, Stojakovic and Rytis Petraitis all hit 3-pointers early in the second half as the Bears built up a 47-35 lead with 17:06 to play. The Cal lead never went back down to single digits following that 11-2 run as the Bears eventually pulled away down the stretch in a game that it led by as many as 19.

"Obviously last game wasn't the game I wanted individually or collectively, but they just told me to keep going," Stojakovic said. "My teammates making shots in the second half and having trust in me to make those big plays down the stretch."

The impressive scoring performance by Stojakovic was not the only positive thing he did for the Bears on Saturday as the second-year guard also dished out a team-high 4 assists to go with 7 rebounds in the win.

Ola-Joseph scored 13 points and connected on three 3-pointers as he and Stojakovic combined for seven makes from beyond the arc in Saturday's game. Cal knocked down 12 3-pointers as a team against the Demons with 10 of those coming in the second half.

The Bears shot 53% (28 for 53) from the field as a group in the game.

Petraitis pulled down a team-high 8 rebounds to go with 7 points and 2 assists in 33 minutes.

After scoring just 4 points against Stanford on Dec. 7, freshman guard Jeremiah Wilkinson again hit double figures Saturday as he scored 18 points in 22 minutes off the bench for the Bears. It is his fifth game with at least 15 points this season.

Wilkinson truly made his presence felt in the second half as he scored 16 points over the final 20 minutes including hitting two 3-pointers, one of which came during the key 12-2 run midway through the second half when the Bears pushed their lead to 19 points.

He also had 2 rebounds, a steal and an assist in the game for Cal.

"We hit a tough spell," Cal head coach Mark Madsen said after the game. "We lost a few games straight, and our guys came back out and battled tonight. I was really proud of them. ... We can still do a better job defensively, but we saw a lot of things transfer from the practice court to the game. So, I thought it was great to see."

The Bears will not be in action again until next Saturday when they close out nonconference play in the San Jose Tip-Off against San Diego State at SAP Center.