Guangzhou Evergrande past Kashiwa Reysol into AFC Champions League semis

Thanks to Huang Bowen's beautiful volley equalizer, 2013 champions Guangzhou Evergrande drew Kashiwa Reysol 1-1 in the second leg of AFC Champions League quarterfinals here on Tuesday, advancing to semifinals by 4-2 on aggregate.

Kashiwa Reysol, who had to cut their two goal deficit to live their hope in the tournament as they lost the first leg 1-3 at home, opened the scoring in the 12th minute with Cristiano heading net after Akimi Barada' s free kick.

The home side were so close to equalize in the 20th minute, only to see Zheng Long flicked the ball past keeper Sugeno Takanori but just off the left post.

Paulinho, who scored a stunning 40-meter free-kick goal in the first leg, failed to hit the target at the similar distance in the 24th minute.

Guangzhou finally pulled level just before the half hour mark. Huang Bowen fired a beautiful volley into the back of net from the edge of box after Zheng Zhi's cross.

The second half kicked off with Kashiwa needing two more goals to prevent being eliminated and they nearly got one but Kobayashi Yuzuku's promising shot was blocked by Guangzhou's defender Feng Xiaoting in the 50th minute.

The Japanese side kept putting pressure as Masato Kudo headed a curling effort just before the hour mark, only to be refused by keeper Zeng Cheng.

Zeng saved the home side again in the 81st minute by stopping Cristiano's long range shot, making Kashiwa's effort all in vain. Endi