Reckon you can stop that tearout with a decent knife line (or clamp a sacrificial block to the edge).
Tip: If you look at your pics in Windows "Photo and Fax viewer", rotate them until correct and then close, they will stay rotated (even when you upload them).
EDIT: Maybe not use the plunge - just lock it down for each successive depth of cut, and use the depth stop on the Triton.