River Plate, Cerro Porteno into Copa Sud semis

Nov 5, 2009 - 2:37 AM BUENOS AIRES, Argentina(AP) -- Luciano Dos Santos saved two penalties and scored from the spot himself as Uruguay's River Plate completed a penalty shootout victory over San Lorenzo in the Copa Sudamericana quarterfinals on Wednesday.

In the day's other quarterfinal, Paraguay's Cerro Porteno beat Brazil's Botafogo 3-1 and 5-2 on aggregate.

In the semifinals, River will play either Liga de Quito of Ecuador or Velez Sarsfield of Argentina, while Cerro Porteno will face either Universidad de Chile or Fluminense of Brazil.

The LDQ-Velez and Universidad-Fluminense quarterfinals will be decided on Thursday.

In Buenos Aires, River Plate's Richard Porta scored a minute after halftime after a mistake by the San Lorenzo defense.

Following San Lorenzo's 1-0 triumph in the first leg, River's win by the same score sent the match to penalties.

Dos Santos saved Jonathan Bottinelli's shot and Gaston Aguirre missed for San Lorenzo, while Jorge Rodriguez and Porta failed for River.

After scoring his own penalty, Dos Santos then made the decisive save from San Lorenzo striker Pablo Pintos to secure the 7-6 shootout win.

In Rio, Jorge Nunez opened the scoring in the 57th minute to put Cerro Porteno in charge against Botafogo.

Andre Lima equalized in the 74th, but Alessandro was sent off three minutes later with Botafogo still needing another goal to level the aggregate scores.

Cerro Porteno took advantage of the extra man to rubber-stamp passage to the semis with goals from Julio Irrazabal in the 88th and Luis Caceres in stoppage time.

The two-legged semifinals will start next week, with the finals scheduled for Nov. 25 and Dec. 2.