Any teachers here to maybe help explain a perplexing problem?

I wrote two essays for my college English class. The first one I half-assed on revising and editing. I'll admit that because I was really rusty. I've been out of school for about 11 years and trying to adjust to 8 week courses in an academic setting was stressful at best. I rushed that essay. The result was 7 points being deducted from a perfect score.

Then I wrote the second essay. I did refine it, even incorporating other skills I've learned through self study because I know I was capable of doing better. I listened to my professor's desire for a more lively voice versus the typical flat academic paper. That is definitely something in my wheelhouse because I write narrative prose, and that's an element of writing that's transferable. Also, I took special care in applying the three different type of appeals in this essay. The first one lacked pathos and ethos, so I was sure to add that in. Guess what? 7 points deducted.

I compared the rubric for both essays looking at the margins.
Body development: -3 points.
Structure & organization: -2 points.
MLA format: -2 points.
All of these were the same for both! I'm not entirely sure why the format didn't change because I did correct things in the second essay. This was after I skimmed through the 14 pages in the MLA handbook. Some stuff did not apply to the paper, others did. Otherwise, I copied the format mostly from the textbook example of an academic paper in MLA format.

I would've thought that the quality of the paper improving would reflect in the grading. I mean, it should have considering how raw the first essay was compared to the second. I'm perplexed. I already know what I'm going to do for my final one to get more insight. The university has resources for that. I just wanted to get people's opinions.