Having edged past closet-rival Heath McCormick 6-5, his team of Tyler George, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner now have just two matches remaining in the round-robin format at the Baxter Arena.

Shuster, who lives in Wisconsin, has a strong pedigree in the sport. 

He is the reigning national champion, has never lost an Olympic trials and is trying for an American-record fourth Olympic curling team.

He also won an Olympic bronze medal in 2006 in Turin, the US's only curling medal to date.

McCormick, whose team is made up of Chris Plys, Korey Dropkin, Tom Howell and Rich Ruohonen recovered from that set-back to record a fine 7-2 win over Brady Clark's team to improve their win-loss record to 5-2. 

Todd Birr, at 4-2, is the only other team in the hunt to make the men's finals, which will determine the US entrant in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Birr picked up his second win of the day in the evening game against Craig Brown, skipped by the 2014 Olympian, to remain in the play-off hunt.

The women's section is hard to call Jamie Sinclair took a big step forward in the standings, catching up to Nina Roth. 

Sinclair’s rink opened with a win in the morning session against Cory Christensen to improve to 2-2 and then beat Roth's quartet in the evening session. 

Ahead 5-4 in the ninth end, Sinclair scored a deuce to go ahead 7-4 in the tenth to earn their third win while Roth a second loss.

Next up Birr, sitting in third place in the men’s standings, will be facing both the McCormick and Shuster rinks in critical games.

On the women’s side, Christensen will look to keep itself alive with games against Roth and Sinclair.

The top two teams in each group advance to the best-of-three finals that begin on Thursday (November 16) to determine which quartet will represent the US in South Korea.